A CANVAS print featuring a 'travelling bear' is currently on display at an art gallery in the Dales.

The Chapel Gallery, Hawes, is presenting the canvas print The Travelling Teddy Bear visiting the Ribblehead viaduct by the German photographer Olaf von Dombrowski.

The idea was inspired by a travel diary for the photographer's mother, who was going through a difficult period at the time. The 'adventures of the teddy bear' and the photos showing him at all places he visited, gave Olaf's mother a new zest for life.

Thus, the idea was born to make people happy with The Travelling Teddy Bear. When Olaf's wife Birgit started posting photos of the bear on a Cornwall holiday on Facebook two years later, showing beautiful, interesting and almost unknown places, the story suddenly took off.

The organiser of ART8 – Newquay Arts Festival invited the photographer to exhibit his images at the 2013 event. This has since led to more than 40 exhibitions in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Among them are several highlights, such as the participation in an exhibition lasting more than eight months at the Windsor & Royal Borough Museum in honour of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The prints of The Travelling Teddy Bear photos, limited to 25 copies, have inspired people and the annual calendars, limited to 250 copies, have become 'cult objects and collectors' items.

Olaf von Dombrowski was born in Celle (Germany) in 1960. He grew up in Celle, Bad Nenndorf and Emden, where he began to make music. At the beginning of the 1980s, Olaf gave up making music and moved to Cologne, where he worked for record company EMI Records for about seven years, followed by another seven years in three different agencies in the music business, before he managed an internationally known disco as its general manager for about 13 years. He then took up his old hobby of photography and started The Teddy Bear Project in 2010..

The museum is open Monday to Wednesday, 11am to 4pm, on Thursday, 10am to 4pm, and on Saturday and Sunday, from 11am to 3pm. For more details about the museum, see chapelgalleryhawes.com.