A CHESTER art gallery has been chosen to host the first Royal Academy touring exhibition to visit the North West.

The Watergate Street Gallery will display 25 pieces by eight major British artists, including work by “the godfather of Pop Art” Sir Peter Blake.

This is the first time the RA has shown a group show since its creation in 1768, according to the venue’s manager.

Original character studies and pencil sketches by Blake, who designed the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album cover, form the centrepiece of the exhibition.

The Watergate Street Gallery has sold his work for several years and it was through this connection that the RA show came about.

The venue’s manager Alex Sharp, said the event was a real coup for Chester.

He said: “I am delighted and privileged to be able to bring world famous Royal Academy artists to Chester.

“We have been building a reputation in the North West through Sir Peter Blake and Sir Terry Frost and we were approached to continue that success with a selection of other RA artists.

“We have always had the philosophy of bringing new, fresh, different yet affordable art to all and our quarterly exhibitions are an exciting extension of that with free entry to the public.”

A range of limited edition prints will include work by abstract artist Sandra Blow, co-founder of the Neo-Romantic movement John Piper, landscape painter Donald Hamilton Fraser, “Europe’s answer to Mark Rothko” John Hoyland and printmaker Barbara Rae and Sir Terry Frost, who first began painting as a prisoner of war.