AN art gallery is celebrating its 30th anniversary as it re-opens with an exhibition by a well-known artist.

Entitled Jack's Travels, the exhibition by Jack Hellewell opens on Monday, April 12.

Jack, who showed at the gallery's original premises in Grape Lane in the 1980s, would have been 100 last year. The gallery had planned a series of exhibitions in celebration of his birthday but had to postpone this due to the pandemic.

The exhibitions will now take place this year and the first, Jack's Travel, will include many paintings that have not been shown before.

Jack Hellewell was born in Bradford in 1920, trained as a painter at Bradford College of Art from 1949-1952, lived in Menston and latterly in Ilkley. He had travelled widely and had also lived in Australia – all experiences that provided inspiration for his painting.

The gallery has a reputation for showing the finest quality in contemporary painting, specialising in semi-figurative work by living artists and with a policy of showing many artists not yet known in the North.

Having founded Grape Lane Gallery in 1984, Ann and David Petherick bought Kentmere House, a Victorian former Methodist Minister’s house overlooking York’s Knavesmire, in 1991, to use it as a home and art gallery.

For the initial week, the gallery will open every day, 11am-5pm, from Monday, April 12, to Saturday, April 17 (extended to 9pm on Thursday, April 15). It will then revert to its usual pattern of on the first weekend of the month, 11am-5pm, with late evenings on Thursdays, until 9pm. As always, visitors are welcome at any other time by ringing ahead or just taking pot luck.