Harrogate's former Old Market Hall has been brought back to life in a new collection by award-winning Yorkshire artist Claire Baxter.
The Knaresborough-based artist’s Bygone Yorkshire collection comprises six oil paintings combining different generations of music, fashion and youth culture with landmarks from across the county.
Created over five months, the collection spans six decades - from Teddy Boys and Mods to Punks, New Romantics, 1990s pop culture and Goths.
One painting, titled The Look of Love, depicts New Romantics outside Harrogate’s much-missed Old Market Hall.
Another features Punks eating fish and chips outside Knaresborough’s former bus station, which has since been demolished.
Claire said:
“From Teddy Boys, Mods and Punks to New Romantics, Pop and Goths, each generation had its own visual language and its own way of expressing itself.
“I wanted to explore another layer of nostalgia—the places that were part of those memories. Some have gone, some have changed and some are still standing but have a completely different purpose.
“By placing each generation in these settings, I could bring together two different kinds of memory—the people and the places.”
Other paintings feature Saltaire’s Victorian mills, Scarborough’s former Luna Park, the old Majestyk nightclub in Leeds and Whitby Abbey.
Claire said the collection explores how places, music and fashion continually evolve while the memories connected to them remain.
She added:
“Time doesn’t stand still. Places change. Buildings disappear. Buildings survive but take on new meaning. Music evolves. Fashion moves on. Subcultures merge into something new.
“But the memories remain. They remain in the places we remember, the music we listened to, the clothes we wore, the friends we made and the moments when we felt we belonged to something.
“This collection is my way of bringing some of those moments back to life.”
Claire was selected as the official artist for the Tour de Yorkshire in 2020, although the event was later cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bygone Yorkshire will be exhibited publicly at the Claire Baxter Gallery on Castlegate in Knaresborough from Friday 18th until Sunday 20th September.
The original paintings and limited-edition prints will also be available from the gallery.
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