Leeds University Library Galleries

This week's #OnlineArtExchange @artukdotorg.bsky.social theme is Black artists and sitters for Black History Month. We have chosen James Northcote's 1826 portrait of Ira Aldridge as Othello, the Moor of Venice.

Only 10 days until Halloween (and less than a week until we open our Quite Shameless exhibition all about vampires!) But which vampire are you? Swipe to find out, then let us know in the comments! #QuiteShameless #Vampire #Exhibition #SpookySeason #Halloween

📷️ 2: John Tenniel, "The Irish Vampire", Punch, 1885. General/PUN. 5: Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, "Carmilla", in The Dark Blue, 1871–72 . Brotherton Collection General. 7: Book of Hours, ca. 1440–60. Brotherton Collection MS 5.

Are you an ambitious researcher interested in exploring and showcasing world-leading cultural collections? Then you're in luck! We are recruiting our 2026-27 postdoctoral fellows with @lahri.bsky.social right now! We've got two Fellowships to choose from. Let us tell you a bit about them 👇

The Brotherton Fellowship is designed for a researcher to make use of and promote Cultural Collections. This could be Art, Coins, Cookery, Feminism, Incunabula, Textiles, Poetry, Medieval Manuscripts, Theatre, Religion, Yorkshire... Again, full details on the @lahri.bsky.social website

Are you an ambitious researcher interested in exploring and showcasing world-leading cultural collections? Then you're in luck! We are recruiting our 2026-27 postdoctoral fellows with @lahri.bsky.social right now! We've got two Fellowships to choose from. Let us tell you a bit about them 👇

Our new exhibition, Quite Shameless, is opening on Tuesday 27 October. In anticipation, this week's #MuseumJigsaw is one of our exhibition items; a tiger skull! Play here: www.jigsawplanet.com?rc=play&pid=... 🧩 Be sure to come along to Treasures of the Brotherton to catch this eerie exhibition!

This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is contemporary portraiture! @artukdotorg.bsky.social We've chosen two expressive self-portraits which seem to stare right at you! #CulturalCollections #SelfPortrait #UniversityOfLeeds

You may know of the Irene Manton building on the University of Leeds Campus, but who was Irene Manton? Manton was a pioneering botanist and electron microscopist. She spent much of her career at Leeds, where she worked as Professor of Botany and carried out influential research on ferns and algae.

As the first woman to become both a professor and Head of School at the University of Leeds, it is important that her legacy is not lost! Come along to our lunchtime drop-in and explore specimen slides, books, sketches and groundbreaking electron microscope images from our Irene Manton Archive!

In today’s #OnlineArtExchange we are Celebrating #QueerJoy @artukdotorg.bsky.social We’ve chosen Leeds born artist Robert Hawthorn Kitson’s watercolours ‘Banyan Trees, Madura’ and ‘Corte della Fontana, Casa Cuseni’.

After Kitson fled England to escape homosexual persecution, he moved to Sicily. It is there that his home, Casa Cuseni, became a safe space for other LGBTQ+ people to celebrate queer joy as part of a community.

Inspired by this lovely time of year where the air is crisp and the leaves are still (mostly) green, our #MuseumJigsaw this week is Landscape with a Wood by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Play here: www.jigsawplanet.com/LULGalleries 🧩

There’s a chill in the air in today’s #autumn #OnlineArtExchange @artukdotorg.bsky.social We’ve chosen two autumnal oil paintings, rich in their seasonal golden hues.

"Representation isn't a passive fact, but an active choice." It's the final week to see Who am I you? in Treasures of the Brotherton. Before the exhibition closes, we invite you to look deeper with new interpretation from a group of co-producers and artists from The Highrise Project.

By paying attention to both what is present and what is absent, Maker Not Recorded encourages a closer examination of museum objects, asking us to consider who is not represented in collections, and how these absences shape our understanding of culture and history.

"Representation isn't a passive fact, but an active choice." It's the final week to see Who am I you? in Treasures of the Brotherton. Before the exhibition closes, we invite you to look deeper with new interpretation from a group of co-producers and artists from The Highrise Project.

In contrast, the title Maker Not Recorded references a phrase used in the exhibition labelling where it is not known who created the work. In borrowing this phrase, we reiterate the fact that representation isn’t a passive fact, but an active choice.

"Representation isn't a passive fact, but an active choice." It's the final week to see Who am I you? in Treasures of the Brotherton. Before the exhibition closes, we invite you to look deeper with new interpretation from a group of co-producers and artists from The Highrise Project.

Developed through the University of Leeds’ Welcoming Migrants programme, Maker Not Recorded brings together reflections from a group of co-producers who met to discuss the objects in Who am I to you?, their histories, and the records that surround them.

It is the final week of Who am I to you? in Treasures of the Brotherton 👤 We've chosen a parliament of portraits for our last #MuseumJigsaw before we say goodbye to the exhibition and all these faces head back to their homes. Play here: www.jigsawplanet.com/LULGalleries... 🧩

Turner Prize 2026 opens today at MIMA ✨️ Huge congratulations to this year's nominees Simeon Barclay, Kira Freije, Marguerite Humeau and Tanoa Sasraku. We've been lucky to have two of the nominated artists previously exhibit in our galleries. #TurnerPrize2026

The Reader Reunited We've chosen these two bronzes by Ivan Meštrović for today's #OnlineArtExchange @artukdotorg.bsky.social Lord Brotherton and his niece-in-law Dorothy Una Ratcliffe have been reunited in our exhibition Who am I to you? thanks to a loan from our pals @leedsmuseums.bsky.social

You can find out more about these sculptures on our Bloomberg Connects digital guide guides.bloombergconnects.org/en-GB/guide/... And author of the interpretation, Jelena Sofronijevic, is giving a talk about the life and legacy of Ivan Meštrović TONIGHT! Tune in from wherever you are 👇