ANTHONY GREEN EXHIBITION - 1984

Don't know if anyone remembers the Anthony Green exhibition held at the McManus Gallery in 1984. It was a touring show called "One Day In The Life Of A Picture" and it also coincided with his first book "A Green Part Of The World".
I went along to see it - this image above being a postcard I came back with.
His paintings of his domestic life were quite humorous, and composed as if they were snapshots taken from a CCTV camera!
I recall him cropping up in the media quite a lot back then, tv, Sunday supplements and so on, so he seemed to be very popular around that era.
Can't say I've seen much of his stuff after the 80's though.

McINTOSH PATRICK - RETROSPECTIVE - 1987

Here's Dundee's most well known artist, James McIntosh Patrick, signing copies of his catalogue for some of the thousands who went along to see his retrospective exhibition held at the McManus Gallery in 1987. The show, which tied in with his 80th birthday, broke all attendance records for an exhibition at the gallery - 45,000 in fact! That's about a quarter of Dundee's population I reckon.

A few years later, he appeared in an episode of The Broons in the Sunday Post under the guise of Patrick McIntosh. The cartoon strip featured his most famous painting "Tay Bridge From My Studio Window" - with steam train and Magdalen Green recreated on the Broons kitchen wall!!

OPENING OF TAY ROAD BRIDGE - 1966

On this day 43 years ago, the Tay Road Bridge was officially opened.
Also on this day 43 years ago when I was aged 8, I was playing with my mates in the culdee where I lived, when one of my neighbours shouted over to us to ask if we wanted to go across the bridge. Needless to say, we all piled into his car. It was around teatime we set off, thinking we were in for a nice pleasant half hour trip, however, it seemed like the rest of Dundee had the same idea at the same time as the queue from our end of town was miles long, right along Dock St & Broughty Ferry Road. It was the same over in Fife when we eventually inched our way along the bridge. It was dark when we got back after what turned out to be about a 4-5 hour crawl, with the parents worried what had happened to us.
I remember the neighbour saying "At least, when you're old, you'll be able to tell people that you went across the bridge the day it opened!" - and I think this is that very moment!
I also recall there was a bit of a rush for Dundonians to get their mitts on one of these First Day Covers that commemorated the occasion. Wonder how many kept theirs though?
The film clip below is from the same day too and has a bit about the "new" bridge and how Dundee was looking forward into the future!
Lord Provost Maurice McManus explains the reasons for the bridge and its cost.
By the way, he is who the McManus Galleries building is named after.

NEW MUSEUM EXHIBITS - 1980'S

When the old Museum (Albert Institute) was modernised in the late 70's, the main entrance moved from the corner of Meadowside to the area facing Panmure Street.
Also during the renovation, the Central Library moved out of the Museum building in 1979 to the Wellgate, and the Victoria Galleries were renamed the McManus Galleries.
The Museum introduced a new "local history" room which displayed things like Blind Mattie's squeeze box, Tay Bridge disaster relics and so on.
A quirky story from October 1983 was when the Museum put on a football exhibition with all sorts of memorabilia on display. A match programme dated 1925 from the Dundee v Celtic Scottish Cup final was stolen. The police eventually tracked it down and returned it. Bizarrely, it was found inside Tannadice!
The McManus Galleries created a larger space for showing temporary art exhibitions. These changed on a regular basis, sometimes they were big name touring exhibitions and sometimes shows by local artists. I used to visit them quite a lot because they kept varying...from Eduardo Paolozzi to Ansel Adams.
The photo above was taken in 1983 and shows a corner of one of their temporary exhibitions. I think the yellow & black one, 2nd from the left, could be a Sutherland crucifixion.