Li Yuan-chia

Funny how things link up. When I was reading the Andy Goldsworthy book this week, I read that his first exhibition was in 1980 at the LYC Gallery at Banks near Brampton. I knew I had read about that place a few weeks ago and remembered it was in the Cumbrian Rag Rugs book. The gallery was next door to where Winifred Nicholson lived.

LYC Gallery Bankside, Brampton was set up and run by an amazing Chinese artist Li Yuan-chia. Li came from Taiwan and had travelled to various places and worked with different artists until he arrived in Brampton and Winifred encouraged him to set up a gallery and invite artists to create exhibitions. The gallery ran from 1971 to 1982, the list of artists who had exhibitions there is impressive. This tells a lot more about Li - https://www.lycfoundation.org/li-yuan-chia/lyc-museum/

I looked into the story and found that Li stayed at Bankside for the rest of his life until he died in 1994. When I discovered he was buried in Lanercost Priory Churchyard and there was a gravestone, I decided I needed to find it. We both like Lanercost and visit often. And a visit to Lanercost inevitably means lunch at the cafe. So, after shopping today, we went on to Brampton and had a lovely lunch at Lanercost (This place has always been good but it seems to be even better now. We complemented them on the coffee and found they roasted the beans themselves . . . brilliant.)

Then we found the gravestone (my blip). The photo should have had the Priory in the background but there are of course too many trees - you might just be able to see a bit of the stonework through the trees. (see extra for the missing Priory).

We went up to Banks Milecastle as there are great views but made no attempt to find Bankside which is apparently derelict. So many visitors around Hadrian’s Wall at this time of year. We went home with our shopping.