The Fiction Factory

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

I was excited to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. One of the highlights for me is the Salvador Dali painting, Christ of St John on the Cross, but I discovered it’s on loan to Spain right now, but will return in June 2024, so I will definitely be back.

It’s easy to get to if you have arrived by train at Queen Street Station. You can jump on the underground and ten minutes takes you to Kelvingrove, or if able, you could decide to walk. If you exit the station and walk across George Square, turn right into St Vincent Place and if you keep walking this merges into St Vincent Street and you just keep going. Thirty minutes later you will arrive at Kelvingrove. The centre of Glasgow is mainly a grid, so getting around is fairly easy. It’s not the sprawl of Edinburgh Old Town for example, but in my mind still has some amazing architecture to look at when travelling through. I did stop off for a takeaway coffee from Cafe Nero which is on the other side of the road from an amazing Gothic looking church, sandwiched between two modern, steel and glass builds. I get the fact that things need to progress on – and I can see a beauty in the modern style – but the old buildings are the ones I like to see. I also passed a statue of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, our most famous architect and designer. For me this made the walk worthwhile. You can see examples of Mackintosh’s work when at Kelvingrove.

It’s free entry so it doesn’t come any better than that. There is seating to buy a coffee and cake as you enter the main entrance and another cafe and gift shop in the basement. It’s so important that people turn up and enjoy the space and the exhibits. So many places need to charge for entry to maintain them, so the fact that our museums and galleries are in the main free to the public is a great thing. It was good to see the place quite busy and there being quite a buzz as I walked around. I recall when I visited the museum in Budapest, Hungary. There was a deathly silence throughout the building. I was also followed by the staff (not just me, everyone was kept an eye on) and it was an odd, unsettling experience. Scottish museums are the exact opposite. They are welcoming places and conversation and involvement is encouraged.

On entering the first thing you are presented with is the pipe organ which overlooks the main hall. There are regular recitals here and are immensely popular. I would recommend picking up a map of the museum as it’s on a couple of levels with numerous rooms holding the displays. From the centre hall you come in on, you can choose to either go into either wing of the building and then up the stairs and I’ve found it confusing until I used the plan to document my around the various sections.

Another highlight for me is the installation of the “Floating Heads” by Sophie Cave. This consists of fifty different heads suspended above the museum gallery each one showing a different facial expression or emotion. There is a Spitfire fighter plane dating from 1947, also suspended from the ceiling. If interested, the first floor provides a close view of it.

Personally, I don’t like stuffed animals. It’s a part of our history, when these creatures were shot and transported back, stuffed and put in glass display cases. It’s a reminder that we should never go back to that practice and an indicator of a darker time. This section of the museum is in stark contrast to another exhibition I went to see in Edinburgh the following week, capturing wildlife through the lens of a camera.

As noted above, the Dali is coming back to Glasgow in June, so I will be making another visit to go and view it. I’m lucky I can go back again and again as with so many museums and galleries, they are packed full of fascinating pieces and it’s an enjoyable challenged attempting to take in as much as I can on each occasion.