The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair is a high quality craft fair in a city centre location, Spinningfields, just off Deansgate in Manchester.

The Fair is a place where a wide variety of high quality art and craft designers will be selling art and crafts direct to the public (and trade). This large contemporary craft fair will host products from, in the region of 130 – 140 high quality designers. Their products are made using a wide variety of materials and including ceramics, furniture and wood, glass, jewellery, metal ware, mixed media and textiles and leather.

You can browse the wide variety of craft and artwork available and talk to the people involved with making them. Whether you are looking for something special for yourself, someone you know, or something for the home, you will have a wide variety of higher end quality art and craftwork to choose from.

Last years Fair was very successful and organisers plan to build on their success with a new prestigious central location in Manchester’s, Spinning Fields.

There is a Preview Evening on Thursday 22nd October from 6.00pm to 9.30pm and tickets for the evening cost £10.00. The three day Fair commences on Friday 23rd October, and has the following opening hours:-

Friday 23rd October 11.00am – 8.30pm
Saturday 24th October 10.00am – 6.00pm
Sunday 25th October 10.00am – 5.00pm

A one day ‘Single ticket’ is available and is priced at £5 per person. Concessions and group discounts are also available.

Full details of this event are available from the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair website

He is most famous for his paintings – the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. However, as well as being an exceptional painter he sketched extensively and there are a large number of his drawing in collections all over the world.

To celebrate the 60th birthday of HRH The Prince of Wales ten drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, will be on show at the Manchester Art Gallery, (Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3JL), from Saturday 14th February to Monday 4th May 2009.

The drawings are rarely seen and are not on permanent display due to their fragile nature and sensitivity to light. So it may be some time before there will be another opportunity to see these great works in Manchester.

The drawings are part of the Royal Collection which is held in trust by the Queen. The Royal Collection contains many of da Vinci’s most significant drawings as well as a wide range of items including sculptures, furniture, ceramics and textiles. They are preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.

Manchester Art Gallery is one of only four venues in the UK showing this exhibition, the others being Truro, Stirling and Aberystwyth.

Entrance is Free.

Further information about the exhibition can be found on the Manchester Galleries website and you can see Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings from the Royal Collection on the Collections website.