WITH a live broadcast from none other than HRH Prince of Wales the official opening of Leonardo 500 will be hard to beat.

Southampton’s City Art Gallery is one of just 12 venues around the country to host work by Leonardo da Vinci in the 500th year since his death.

Drawings from the Royal Collection Trust – of which Prince Charles is chair – have been specially curated to show the scope of da Vinci’s scientific and creative genius.

144 pieces will go on show around the country - all opening on the same day. In his opening speech, Prince Charles said the technology needed to put on a UK wide exhibition would be something da Vinci “would embrace.”

The priceless works have been selected to reflect the full range of Leonardo’s interests – painting, sculpture, architecture, music, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany.

And curator Anna Reynolds said nobody in the UK should be “more than an hour away” from the exhibitions.

But also on show at the Southampton gallery is work by another “spectacular” talent.

Southampton artist Greg Gilbert was chosen to show his work alongside that of da Vinci’s in Greg’s second exhibition at the gallery since 2015 – and the first major exhibition since he was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2016.

The show illustrates the trajectory of his work – from photorealistic biro drawings inspired by his diagnosis to his latest abstract compositions inspired by da Vinci. Greg has also curated a selection of drawings from the city collection including work by Graham Sutherland.

Speaking to the Echo Greg said he is now “more interested in aggressive and primitive paintings,” and chose to move towards painting as a personal challenge, adding: “I admire the technical abilities of hyper-realist paintings, but I find them a bit pointless. Really its abstraction I’m interested in. I’m not interested in doing realist paintings at all. I wanted to scare myself into it.”

Leonardo 500: A Life In Drawing and Greg Gilbert: A Gentle Shrug Into Everything runs until May 6.