The New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery sited in the centre of the West Midlands town of

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield. Walsall is th ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and additional money from the

European Regional Development Fund The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the European Structural and Investment Funds allocated by the European Union. Its purpose is to transfer money from richer regions (not countries), and invest it in the infrastructure and s ...

and City Challenge. The Gallery is funded by

Walsall Council Walsall Council, formerly Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council was created in 1974 to administer the newly formed Metropolitan Borough of Walsall. Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council was assessed by the Audit Commission in 2008 and judged to ...

and

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

; this funding is further supplemented by its own income generation. Admission is free. Its first Director was Peter Jenkinson. In May 2005, former

BALTIC Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

director Stephen Snoddy was appointed as Director.

Architecture

Caruso St John Caruso St John is a London-based architectural firm established in 1990 by Adam Caruso and Peter St John. Practice Caruso St John gained international recognition for its designs of public spaces. The practice came to public attention with Th ...

after winning an international design competition, it opened in January 2000, replacing the town's old gallery and an arts centre that had been closed by the Council almost a decade earlier. It was officially opened by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

on 5 May 2000, during her visit to the West Midlands. The New Art Gallery's stark building won several architectural awards and attracted over 237,000 visitors in its opening year. In 2000, the gallery was shortlisted for the prestigious Sterling Architecture Prize. The five-story building is clad in pale

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terra ...

and has a floor area of . The interior of the Gallery features a heavy use of concrete and 75mm thick

douglas fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Oregon pine, and Columbian pine. There are three v ...

wooden cladding. The public square surrounding the building was designed by Richard Wentworth and Catherine Yass. The Gallery has been seen as an attempt to encourage regeneration in the local area. The architecture has been both praised and criticised, described as "almost flawless" by the RIBA and "extraordinarily good" by Hugh Pearman but also castigated by John Stewart-Young as an "architectural indulgence", an impressive building that lacks consideration of how the wider public will use it. The essayist Theodore Dalrymple described the interior as resembling both "a fascist foreign ministry" and "a sauna of gigantic proportions". There have been a number of minor alterations to the building since its opening, including changing of the ground floor retail area into a cafe, and addition of more windows around its entrance. In 2006, Floor 4 of the gallery was transformed from a restaurant area into a new gallery space. The gallery space with 8m high ceiling has enabled the Gallery to present a further programme of exhibitions, in addition to its main temporary exhibition galleries. This has included exhibitions by regional and international artists including David Batchelor,

Richard Billingham Richard Billingham (born 25 September 1970) is an English photographer and artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere. Billingham is bes ...

and Leo Fitzmaurice. In 2012, artist

Sarah Staton Sarah Staton (born 1961) is a British sculptor. She is head of the sculpture programme at the Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, B ...

was commissioned to design a new sculpture terrace for the Gallery, opening to the public later that same year the space converted a previously underused area of patio on floor 4.

Collections

The Gallery houses the fixed

Garman Ryan Collection The Garman Ryan Collection is a permanent collection of art works housed at The New Art Gallery Walsall and comprises 365 works of art, including prints, sketches, sculptures, drawings and paintings collected by Kathleen Garman (later wife of the ...

of sculptures and paintings by modern masters including a large selection of work by

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produce ...

and many significant works by European artists including

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

, Turner, Corot, Renoir and Constable represented in prints, sketches, drawings, paintings and sculptures. The collection was donated to the people of Walsall in 1973 by Epstein's late wife

Kathleen Garman Kathleen Esther Garman, Lady Epstein (15 May 1901 – August 1979) was the third of the seven Garman sisters, who were high-profile members of artistic circles in mid-20th century London, renowned for their beauty and scandalous behaviour. She ...

(Lady Epstein) and her friend

Sally Ryan Sally may refer to: People *Sally (name), a list of notable people with the name Military *Sally (military), an attack by the defenders of a town or fortress under siege against a besieging force; see sally port *Sally, the Allied reporting nam ...

. In 2006, the gallery acquired the

Epstein Archive The Epstein Archive is one of the largest collections of archives documenting the personal and professional life of the renowned artist and sculptor, Jacob Epstein. It is housed at The New Art Gallery Walsall in England. History The collection ...

, a collection of photographs, manuscripts, sketches and correspondence between Jacob Epstein and his family and friends, patrons, buyers and galleries. In 2009

Bob and Roberta Smith Patrick Brill (born 1963), better known by his pseudonym Bob and Roberta Smith, is a British contemporary artist, writer, author, musician, art education advocate, and keynote speaker. He is known for his "slogan" art, is an associate professor ...

was commissioned to work alongside Archive Curator Neil Lebeter to reveal the previously undocumented and unseen Epstein Archive to audiences. The initiative forms part of New Ways of Curating, a project initiated by Arts Council England. New Art Gallery Walsall - Art Store 02

The permanent collection of artworks at the Gallery incorporates the municipal holdings built up from 1892, from the formal foundation of Walsall's art collection. It ranges from Victorian paintings by

Frank Holl Francis Montague Holl (London 4 July 1845 – 31 July 1888 London) was an English painter, specializing in somewhat sentimental paintings with a moment from a narrative situation, often drawing on the trends of social realism and the prob ...

and

Briton Rivière Briton Rivière (14 August 1840 in London20 April 1920 in London) was a British artist of Huguenot descent. He exhibited a variety of paintings at the Royal Academy, but devoted much of his life to animal paintings. Biography Briton's fa ...

, including some of local interest through to works by contemporary artists, such as Catherine Yass,

Robert Priseman Robert Priseman (born in Spondon, Derbyshire in 1965) is a British artist, collector, writer, curator and publisher who lives and works in Essex, England. Over 200 works of art by Priseman are held in art museum collections around the world in ...

and

Fiona Banner Fiona Banner (born 1966), also known as The Vanity Press is a British artist. Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, installation and text, and demonstrates a long-standing fascination with the emblem of fighter aircraft and their role within cul ...

. Through the Contemporary Art Society Special Collection scheme, the New Art Gallery Walsall was able to add to its collections works by Gavin Turk, Hew Locke, Mike Nelson, Yoshihiro Suda, Dorothy Cross, Laura Ford, Darren Lago, Estelle Thompson, Richard Woods,

Yinka Shonibare Yinka Shonibare (born 9 August 1962), is a British-Nigerian artist living in the United Kingdom. His work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is t ...

and Rose Finn-Kelcey. The works that comprise this collection transfer ownership to Walsall Council from the Contemporary Art Society in 2014. In 2007, the New Art Gallery was awarded £1million through the Art Fund International to collect international contemporary art on the theme of the metropolis. This has included the acquisition of works by Jochem Hendricks,

Grazia Toderi Grazia Toderi is an Italian artist working primarily in the medium of video art. Born in Padua, and trained in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, Toderi began working in the medium of media and video art in the 1990s. Currently work ...

, Dynita Singh,

Zhang Enli Zhang Enli () was born 1965 in Jilin Province, China, is a professional artist living and working in Shanghai. He graduated from the Arts & Design Institute of Wuxi Technical University, China in 1989, and teaches at the Arts and Design Institute ...

, Christiane Baumgartner, Barry McGee and

Nicolas Provost Nicolas Provost (born 1969, Ronse, Belgium) is a Belgian filmmaker and visual artist who lives and works in New York and Brussels. His works are in a number of collections, including The New Art Gallery Walsall and Birmingham Museum and Art G ...

Exhibitions

The temporary exhibition galleries on the third and fourth floor are dedicated to exhibiting contemporary and historic art. The Gallery has held solo exhibitions by artists including Suzanne Treister,

Mark Titchner Mark Titchner (born 1973) is an English artist, and 2006 nominee for the Turner Prize. He lives and works in London. Focusing on an exploration of words and language, in recent years much of his production has been based in the public realm bot ...

Toby Ziegler Tobias "Toby" Zachary Ziegler is a fictional character in the television serial drama ''The West Wing'', played by Richard Schiff. The role of Toby Ziegler earned actor Richard Schiff the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor i ...

, Conrad Shawcross,

Hew Locke Hew Donald Joseph Locke (born 13 October 1959) is a British sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2000 he won a Paul Hamlyn Award and the EASTinternational Award. In 2010 he was shortlisted for the Fourth plinth ...

, Joana Vasconcelos,

Zarina Bhimji Zarina Bhimji (born 1963) is a Ugandan Indian photographer, based in London. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, exhibited at Documenta 11 in 2002, and is represented in the public collections of Tate, the Museum of Contemporary Art i ...

, Christopher Le Brun, Gordon Cheung, Layla Curtis, Anna Barriball,

Adam Dant Adam Dant (born 1967) is a Jerwood Drawing Prize-winning British artist (2002). He has won praise from '' The Guardian'' and '' Financial Times'' for his Hogarthian graphic style. Among the artists that have inspired him, Dant lists Albrecht D� ...

Gavin Turk and Jonathan Yeo. Between 2012 and 2013, the Gallery hosted the first year long display of works by artist

Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...

as part of the

ARTIST ROOMS Artist Rooms is the title of a collection of international modern and contemporary art, established through the d'Offay donation in 2008. Comprising over 1,500 works by 38 artists, it is owned by the National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate, ...

on Tour in partnership with Tate. The New Art Gallery also has a history of exhibiting group shows, beginning with the inaugural exhibition ''Blue'' featuring works by artists such as

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK t ...

Glen Brown Glenmore Lloyd Brown (1943 or 1944Campbell-Livingston, Cecelia (2013)Tough Times for Glen Brown", ''Jamaica Observer'', 15 July 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2014Larkin, Colin, ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', 1998, Virgin Books, . – 4 O ...

Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a lea ...

and

Bridget Riley Bridget Louise Riley (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter known for her op art paintings. She lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France. Early life and education Riley was born on 24 April 1931 in Norwood, Londo ...

. The 2009 exhibition ''Re-Imagining Asia'', aimed to explore the meaning and relevance of the term “contemporary Asian art” in the 21st century and within a wider context of globalisation, migration and an increasingly international art world. It featured artists such as

Song Dong Song Dong (, born 1966) is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installations, performance, photography and video. He has been involved in many solo and group exhibitions around the world, covering a range of themes and topics in ...

, exhibiting here in the UK for the first time. In 2010, the New Art Gallery celebrated its tenth birthday with the exhibition ''Party!''. In 2011, the Gallery hosted the exhibition ''The Life of The Mind: Love, Sorrow and Obsession'', curated by artist Bob and Roberta Smith. This included key works by

Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects. ...

, Louise Bourgeois,

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, CBE, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and ...

and

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...

Artist residencies

The gallery has continually supported emerging and established artists from throughout the UK through their regular residency programs. Artists in residence include: a.a.s, Simon and Tom Bloor, Sean Burn, Faye Claridge, Lucienne Cole, Harminder Judge, Juneau Projects, Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, Feng-Ru Lee,

, Ivan Smith, Yoke and Zoom.

Education work

The Discovery Gallery, now rebranded Disco, was the first interactive art space of its kind in the country, designed specifically for young visitors and families. Over 60,000 school children have visited The New Art Gallery since 2003, along with 34,000 lifelong learning participants. The Gallery gained the

Learning Outside the Classroom Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of l ...

quality badge mark in 2009. The New Art Gallery Walsall was one of the first cultural organisations in the UK to take on a Creative Apprentice in 2009. The Gallery, alongside

Ikon Gallery The Ikon Gallery () is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. Ikon was se ...

, works in partnership with

Birmingham City University , mottoeng = "Do what you are doing; attend to your business" , established = 1992—gained university status1971—City of Birmingham Polytechnic1843—Birmingham College of Art , type = Public , affiliation = ...

to run the Artist Teacher Scheme, a professional development programme for art educators.

Other facilities

New Art Gallery Walsall - interior 01 - Library

The New Art Gallery has free public

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

throughout the building. In 2006, the Gallery opened a free public access Art Library, where visitors are able to learn about culture, exhibitions and award-winning architecture. Since opening nearly 50,000 people have made use of the specialist collection of books, journals and archive material. The ground floor café in The New Art Gallery Walsall was transformed into a

Costa Coffee Costa Coffee is a British coffeehouse chain with headquarters in Dunstable, England. Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by Sergio Costa as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. I ...

store in August 2007.

Gallery

Cupboard Love Briton Riviere.jpg, ''Cupboard Love'' (

) 1881 The New Art Gallery Walsall - Kiss an' make-it-up - Erskine Nicol.jpg, ''Kiss an' make-it-up'' ( Erskine Nicol) 1867

References

External links

New Art Gallery Walsall
* {{DEFAULTSORT:New Art Gallery Walsall 2000 establishments in England Art museums and galleries in the West Midlands (county) Art museums established in 2000 Buildings and structures in Walsall Museums in the West Midlands (county)