Bradford's Peace Museum is staging its first major exhibition at the Royal Armouries in Leeds this month. Jim Greenhalf looks at what will be on offer.

Work by Paul Nash, Britain's greatest artist of the 1914-18 War, and the father of Bradford-born artist David Hockney, will hang side by side in the Peace Museum's exhibition, ironically being held at the Royal Armouries.

Nash's foreboding pastel Nightfall: Zillebeke District shows a stripped and desolate landscape in the aftermath of an artillery barrage.

By contrast, the late Kenneth Hockney's contribution consists of three small anti-nuclear weapons banners.

Mr Hockney, whose reputation for seemingly eccentric behaviour extended beyond the family home at Eccleshill, was a clerk for most of his working life but he supplemented his income by painting signs for shops and posters for cinemas. The father of the world's most famous living artist was also known to paint sunsets on the doors of the family home.

The exhibition, A Vision Shared: Art from the British Peace Movement of the 20th Century, has been mounted by Bradford's Peace Museum project and runs from September 19 to November 1.

Carol Rank, project officer for the Peace Museum, said: "It's about the history of the British peace movement, and the art work, from the 1914-18 War to the 1980s, illustrates that history. The oldest exhibit is a 100-year-old banner.

"We initiated this exhibition, the biggest we have mounted so far. We're registered with the Galleries Commission so we can create exhibitions at all sorts of venues."

But why is it being held in Leeds as opposed to Bradford?

"The exhibition is being mounted jointly by the Peace Museum and the Armouries at a cost of thousands of pounds," said Clive Barrett, chairman of the Peace Museum's Management Committee.

"We are trying to build ourselves up as a Bradford Museum with a national reputation. The significance of this is enhanced by having exhibitions in other places such as the Armouries."

But the Bradford Peace Museum is a bit of a misnomer at the moment, as Carol Rank and Clive Barrett would be the first to admit.

For the city doesn't actually have such a museum yet, although those involved are hopeful that an international peace centre with a conference room will eventually be constructed on the site of the former Alexandra Hotel, opposite the Alhambra.

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