Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery facts for kids
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| Established | 1823 |
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| Location | Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RL, England, United Kingdom |
| Visitors | 467,608 (2015/16)* Ranked 23rd nationally |
The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is a big museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. It's located in an area called Clifton, which is about 0.8 kilometers (half a mile) from the city center.
This museum is part of Bristol Culture and is run by the Bristol City Council. The best part is that it's free to enter! It's also a "designated museum," which means the government recognizes it as a really important place with amazing collections. These special collections include things about geology (rocks and earth), Eastern art (art from places like China and Japan), and Bristol's own history, including special pottery called English delftware.
Inside, you'll find sections about natural history (animals, plants, and nature) and archaeology (old things dug up from the past) from Bristol and around the world. The art gallery has paintings and sculptures from many different time periods, including works by famous artists and modern art about Bristol.
In 2009, the museum hosted a huge and secret exhibition by the famous street artist Banksy. It featured over 70 artworks, some with moving parts and special displays. This was his biggest show ever and became very famous worldwide!
The museum building itself is quite old and beautiful, built in an Edwardian Baroque architecture style. It's considered a special historic building.
You can usually visit the museum from Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm. It's also open on Bank Holiday Mondays and during Bristol school holidays.
Contents
What's Happening at the Museum?
The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery often has free and paid events throughout the year. These include special exhibitions that last for several weeks, fun workshops, and talks by museum experts.
One of the biggest yearly events is the celebration for Chinese New Year in February. It's a lively weekend with dancing dragons and lions, martial arts shows, traditional Chinese dances, storytelling, and arts and crafts activities for families. You can find out about current and past events on the museum's website.
A Look Back: The Museum's History
The museum started way back in 1823. It was first known as the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science and Art. It shared a new building on Park Street with another group called the Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society.
Later, in 1872, the Institution joined with the Bristol Library Society. They opened a new, bigger building that combined the museum and library. This new building was designed in a Venetian Gothic style.
By the 1890s, the museum and library were having money problems. So, in 1894, the city of Bristol took over running them. This helped keep the museum open and growing!
In 1899, a rich tobacco businessman named Sir William Henry Wills offered a lot of money to help build a brand new City Art Gallery. Work on this new building started in 1901 and it opened in February 1905. It was designed in a grand Edwardian Baroque style. This new building was meant to hold ancient art and artifacts from places like Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
More space became available for museum displays when the main Bristol Library moved to a different location in 1906. The empty rooms were then used for new exhibits about invertebrates (animals without backbones) and biology.
Sadly, during World War II, in November 1940, the original museum building was badly damaged by bombs during the Bristol Blitz. Many natural history specimens were lost. However, the newer Art Gallery building, though also hit, survived much better. It reopened in 1941 and started to house some of the museum's surviving collections.
After the war, in 1947, the damaged old museum building was sold to Bristol University. The museum and art gallery then focused on improving their existing building.
In 2009, the museum once again hosted the famous Banksy exhibition, which brought a lot of attention to the museum.
What Can You See? The Collections!
Today, the top floor of the art galleries has a special collection of Chinese glass and a collection of Eastern Art called the "Schiller collection." This collection includes many types of Chinese ceramics from different time periods, like beautiful white, light blue, and green-glazed pottery from the Tang and Song Dynasties. You can also see a collection of famous Bristol blue glass.
The Egyptology gallery is super cool! It has real mummies and other ancient items. There's even a wall decoration from Assyria that's over 3,000 years old! The museum has a large collection of Egyptian antiquities, many of which came from important digs in Egypt. A completely new Egyptian gallery opened in 2007.
In the natural history gallery, you can explore examples of water habitats from southwest England. There's an interactive map to learn about local wildlife and a freshwater aquarium with fish from the region.
The museum also keeps many prehistoric and Roman artifacts found in the local area. These include items from Chew Valley Lake and the Orpheus Mosaic from Newton St Loe.
Upstairs, you'll find several art galleries with different styles: Old Masters, French art, British art, Modern Art, and art from the "Bristol School" (artists connected to Bristol).
In 2012, the museum received a huge collection of 50,000 items from the former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, adding even more amazing things to see!
Supporting the Museum
There are groups of "Friends" who help support the museum and art gallery. The Friends of Bristol Art Gallery have helped the gallery buy over 300 artworks since 1947. The Friends of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (started in 1977) support all of Bristol's museums, galleries, and archives.
Other Cool Museums in Bristol
Bristol Culture also manages other interesting museums and sites in Bristol. These include M Shed, Blaise Castle House Museum, the Red Lodge Museum, the Georgian House Museum, Bristol Archives, and Kings Weston Roman Villa. The Bristol Industrial Museum, which closed in 2006, reopened in 2011 as M Shed, telling the story of Bristol's past.
See also
In Spanish: Bristol City Museum para niños
