John Martin's apocalypses
The Northumbrian painter's Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the gallery's most famous and most overwhelming picture.
The sky splits open, cities tumble into fire and people the size of pebbles flee a wrath there is no escaping: that is how John Martin, a Northumberland boy, painted the end of the world two hundred years ago, and his Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the picture everyone stops at in the Laing. The apocalypse hangs, oddly enough, in a handsome Baroque-style building with Art Nouveau flourishes by Cackett & Burns Dick, opened in 1904 on the money of a Scottish-born wine merchant named Alexander Laing, and it has been Newcastle's principal gallery ever since. The collection is not large, which is rather the point. Two floors take you through British oils and watercolours to a Pre-Raphaelite corner that fans of the movement will recognise instantly: Holman Hunt's Isabella and the Pot of Basil and Burne-Jones's Laus Veneris, its warm crimsons almost glowing off the wall. The Northern Spirit gallery shows the city's other face, the silver and glass made here when Newcastle was one of Britain's great manufacturing towns, and painters from the region you will not meet in London. An unhurried hour to ninety minutes covers it; do not expect the National Gallery. This is a city gallery, small, well hung and blissfully uncrowded. Practically: the permanent rooms are free with no booking, while the big temporary shows are ticketed, the headline being Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry, more than a hundred works loaned from Tate, the V&A and others, running from 17 October 2026 to 13 February 2027. One thing catches people out: the gallery is closed on Sundays and bank holidays, and it shuts at 16:30, early even by British winter standards. A lift links the two floors, so pushchairs are no trouble, and a cafe does tea and light lunches until four. It sits right in the centre, five minutes' walk from Monument Metro and a few steps from Northumberland Street and the Eldon Square shops, which makes it the ideal refuge for a rainy hour on a shopping day. Outside the entrance stretches Thomas Heatherwick's Blue Carpet, a sculpted plaza worth a photograph on the way in.
The Northumbrian painter's Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the gallery's most famous and most overwhelming picture.
Holman Hunt's Isabella and the Pot of Basil and Burne-Jones's Laus Veneris are among the movement's key works outside London.
Newcastle silver and glass and regional painters tell the story of the industrial city.
New Bridge Street, NE1 8AG
Both are free but completely different: the Laing is classical paintings and stories on canvas, done in an hour; BALTIC is contemporary art in a huge riverside building and opens seven days. Children enjoy Martin's dramatic scenes but the gallery is not hands-on, and if it is a Sunday the choice is made for you, because the Laing is closed.