Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
Established	28 November 1885 (1885-11-28)
Collection size	c. 800,000 objects
Visitors	644,100 (2019)
Listed Building – Grade II*
Designated:	25 April 1952
Reference #:	1210333

The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (often called BM&AG) is a famous museum and art gallery located in Birmingham, England. It holds a huge collection of important items from all over the world. These include beautiful fine art, delicate ceramics, shiny metalwork, sparkling jewellery, and fascinating objects related to natural history, archaeology, and local history.

This museum is managed by the Birmingham Museums Trust. This trust is the biggest independent group of museums in the United Kingdom. They also look after eight other museums around Birmingham. It's usually free to enter the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. However, some special exhibitions held in the Gas Hall might have an entrance fee.

History of the Museum

How the Museum Started

The idea for the museum began a long time ago. In 1829, a group called the Birmingham Society of Artists opened a private art exhibition. Later, in 1864, the first public art room opened. This happened when the Society and other people donated 64 paintings and a special statue called the Sultanganj Buddha to the city of Birmingham.

At first, these artworks were kept in the Free Library building. But there wasn't enough space, so they had to be moved to Aston Hall. A man named Joseph Henry Nettlefold later gave 25 paintings by the artist David Cox to the gallery. He had one condition: the gallery had to be open on Sundays!

Opening the New Gallery

In 1880, a local artist named Allen Edward Everitt became the honorary curator (someone who looks after the collections) of the Free Art Gallery. This was the early version of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery we know today.

Jesse Collings, who was the Mayor of Birmingham from 1878 to 1879, was a big supporter of free libraries and the idea of a public art gallery. A generous gift of £10,000 from Sir Richard and George Tangye helped kickstart the project for a new art gallery. With more donations and £40,000 from the city council, the new gallery was officially opened on November 28, 1885, by the Prince of Wales.

The museum and art gallery were built as an extension to the Council House. It was located above the city's Gas Department offices. This was a clever way to help pay for the museum, as the Gas Department's profits helped support it. The building was designed by Yeoville Thomason. The beautiful metalwork inside and outside, including the unique cast-iron columns, was made by a Birmingham company called Hart, Son, Peard & Co..

By 1900, the museum's collection, especially its British art, was considered one of the best in Britain.

Changes Over Time

For many years, the museum relied on gifts from private individuals to buy new artworks. In 1940, during World War II, seven of the galleries were bombed and had to be rebuilt.

After the war, two important people, Mary Woodall and Trenchard Cox, helped bring many new exhibitions and donations to the gallery. In 1951, the Museum of Science and Industry became part of BM&AG. Later, in 2001, the Science Museum closed, and some of its exhibits moved to Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum. Thinktank is now also part of the Birmingham Museums Trust.

The main entrance to the museum is in Chamberlain Square, right under the clock-tower that locals call "Big Brum". A message at the entrance says, 'By the gains of Industry we promote Art'.

In October 2010, the Waterhall gallery closed for a while due to budget cuts. However, both the Waterhall and the Gas Hall have since reopened for special exhibitions throughout the year.

The museum closed in October 2020 because of the global pandemic. It stayed closed through 2021 for important rewiring work on the Council complex where it's located. The museum partially reopened in April 2022 with some smaller exhibitions. It closed again in December 2022 for more work. The good news is that the gallery's Round Room, Industrial Gallery, Bridge Gallery, tearoom, and shop all reopened on October 24, 2024!

Industrial Gallery, an original part of the Art Gallery

The Round Room with Jacob Epstein's The Archangel Lucifer

Art Gallery Collection Highlights

The Art Gallery is especially famous for its huge collection of paintings. These paintings cover a long period, from the 14th century all the way to the 21st century.

• 

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
  Proserpine

• 

  Edward Burne-Jones,
  The Star of Bethlehem

• 

  Ford Madox Brown,
  The Last of England

• 

  William Holman Hunt,
  The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple

• 

  Frederick Sandys, Morgan le Fay, 1864

• 

  Frederick Sandys,
  Medea

• 

  Benedetto Gennari II,
  The Holy Family

• 

  Arthur Hughes
  A Christmas Carol at Bracken Dene

Famous Paintings to See

The museum has an amazing collection of works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English artists. It also has the world's largest collection of paintings by Edward Burne-Jones.

Here are some of the famous painters whose works you can find at the gallery:

• English Artists: You can see paintings by John Constable, David Cox, Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, J. M. W. Turner, Francis Bacon, and Stanley Spencer.
• Dutch Artists: There are paintings by Jan van Goyen and Willem van de Velde the Younger.
• Flemish Artists: Look for works by Petrus Christus and Peter Paul Rubens.
• French Artists: The collection includes paintings by Georges Dufrénoy, Gaspard Dughet, and Claude Lorrain.
• Impressionists: You can also find works by famous Impressionist painters like Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
• German Artists: There is a painting by Johann Zoffany.
• Italian Artists: The museum has works by many Italian masters, including Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Canaletto, and Guido Reni.
• Spanish Artists: You can see a painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Ancient Treasures and Local History

The museum's collection of ancient items is also very impressive. It includes old coins from ancient times and the Middle Ages. You can also see artifacts from Ancient India and Central Asia, Ancient Cyprus, and Ancient Egypt. The museum even has 28 pieces of Nimrud ivories, which are ancient carvings made from ivory. There are also items from Classical Greece, the Roman Empire, and Latin America.

The Staffordshire Hoard

In November 2014, a special gallery was opened just to show the Staffordshire Hoard. This incredible collection of Anglo-Saxon gold was found in 2009 in a nearby village called Hammerwich. It is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered!

The museum also collects items related to local and industrial history. For example, the giant logo from the top of the old Birmingham HP Sauce factory tower is now part of the museum's collection. This tower was a famous landmark that was taken down in 2007.

Gallery

See also

In Spanish: Museo y Galería de Arte de Birmingham para niños

• Mercian Trail