Falmouth Art Gallery facts for kids
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The Municipal Buildings in Falmouth (the gallery is on the upper floor)
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| Established | 10 October 1978 |
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| Location | The Moor, Municipal Buildings, Falmouth, Cornwall |
| Type | Publicly funded art museum |
| Nearest parking | Town Quarry car park |
The Falmouth Art Gallery is a cool art gallery in Cornwall, England. It's funded by the public, meaning it gets money from the local council. The gallery has one of the best art collections in Cornwall and the southwest of England.
You can see amazing artworks by old masters, famous Victorian artists, and even Impressionist painters from Britain and France. There are also works by Surrealists, sea-themed artists, and illustrators from children's books. You might even spot some cool moving sculptures called automata, plus modern paintings and prints.
You'll find the gallery on The Moor in Falmouth, Cornwall. It's on the top floor of the Municipal Buildings, right above the public library.
Contents
The Gallery's Story
The Falmouth Art Gallery you see today first opened its doors on 12 October 1978. It's located on the top floor of the Municipal Buildings. The gallery got a big makeover with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other groups. It was then reopened by Sir Tim Rice on 31 May 1996.
Falmouth Town Council helps pay for the gallery. It's also a nationally recognized museum. This means it follows high standards for museums in the United Kingdom.
The main part of the gallery's art collection started in 1923. This was thanks to gifts from Alfred Aaron de Pass, a businessman from South Africa. He loved art and gave many pieces to the gallery. His generosity encouraged other people to donate art too. Important gifts came from Richard Harris, Robert Priseman, Grace Gardner, and Sue and Ron Astles. The gallery has also bought new art with money from groups like The Art Fund.
What You Can See: The Art Collection
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Most of the gallery's art collection came from gifts. Many pieces were donated by Alfred Aaron de Pass. He was a businessman and a kind person who spent a lot of his own money buying art. He then gave these artworks to museums and galleries across England and South Africa.
The gallery has works by many famous British artists. These include Sir Frank Brangwyn, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Charles Napier Hemy, and Dame Laura Knight. You can also see art by Sir Alfred Munnings, Harry Ousey, William Strang, Henry Scott Tuke, John William Waterhouse, George Frederick Watts, and the Cornish painter John Opie.
In 2009, the gallery received a special gift from the Art Fund. This included etchings by famous artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edvard Munch. It also had several works by Prunella Clough, a very important British painter after World War II.
Then, in 2013, the British artist Robert Priseman gave 20 artworks to the gallery. This gift, called 'The Robert Priseman Gift', included pieces by leading British artists from the 21st century. Some of these artists are Mary Webb, Sir Peter Blake, Nicholas Middleton, Marguerite Horner, Alex Hanna, Simon Burton, Simon Carter, and Julian Brown.
Falmouth Art Gallery also has one of the most important collections of master prints outside London. These prints include woodcuts, engravings, and lithographs. You can see works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Adriaen van Ostade, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. There are also prints by modern masters like Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Patrick Caulfield, and Sir Peter Blake.
The gallery also has smaller but important collections of photos from the 20th century and today. It has the biggest collection of Lee Miller photographs outside her own archive. You can also see amazing photos by Eve Arnold, Fay Godwin, and Linda McCartney. The Surrealist collection includes photos by Roland Penrose and artworks by Henry Moore, Man Ray, Eileen Agar, and the Cornish surrealist Jonathon Coudrille.
Exhibitions and Events
Falmouth Art Gallery always has new exhibitions and events. They show art from their own collection, plus special pieces borrowed from other museums. You can also see work by local artists, community groups, school children, and students.
The gallery's art collection is very big and varied for a small museum. They often change the artworks on display in the main galleries. This means there's always something new to see!
The staircase gallery is used for community displays. Groups like Falcare, Age Concern, local schools, and Falmouth University visit regularly. They create art inspired by the works on display.
In late 2021 and early 2022, the gallery hosted a special exhibition called 'Thanks for the Apples'. It featured well-known artists from around the world. These artists visited museums in Cornwall to explore their collections. They then created new artworks based on what they saw.
The artists focused on objects that might be overlooked, like a hairball found inside a bull or tiny old calendars. They wanted to make people think about what these objects mean today.
The gallery's modern collection includes art made especially for seasonal exhibitions. For example, in 2009, they had exhibitions for Darwin200. This celebrated Charles Darwin's arrival in Falmouth in 1836 after his HMS Beagle voyage. A plaque was put up in Falmouth to mark where Darwin came ashore. The exhibitions also feature art by modern Cornish artists like John Dyer. He was the official Darwin200 artist for the Southwest.
In 2016, a Cornish artist named Andrew Lanyon created an exhibition called 'The Musings of Creatures - imagined in a barren land'. This show brought many new artworks into the Falmouth Art Gallery Collection.
The gallery has also had famous past exhibitions. These include "Surrealists on Holiday" in Cornwall and a show about Henri Matisse. You can find a list of previous exhibitions on the gallery's website.
The gallery works with many other organizations to put on shows. These include Penlee House Museum and Gallery, the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, Falmouth University, and Newquay Zoo.
Recent Main Exhibitions
| Exhibition Title | Dates | What it was about | Special Highlights |
| ‘Hevva Hevva: Fishing in Cornwall’ | 25 June – 10 Sept 2022 | This show explored how important fishing has been in Cornwall, from history to today. | A film called ‘Plenty More Fish?’ by Cornwall Climate Care. |
| ‘Polperro: Cornwall’s Forgotten Art Centre’ | 2 April - 18 June 2022 | This exhibition looked at artists from Polperro. It showed how Polperro became an art center and a fishing port. | Mouat Loudan’s famous 1888 painting, Fish Sale, Polperro. The gallery had it restored for the show. |
| 'The Art of Animation From Scribble to Screen: Behind the Scenes of Animation Production' | 29 January - 26 March 2022 | This exhibition showed how animated films are made. It was a partnership with Falmouth University. | Work from the companies that made films like The Gruffalo, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Mr. Bean, and Shaun the Sheep. |
Recent Entrance Gallery Exhibitions
| Exhibition Title | Dates | What it was about | Special Highlights |
| The Surrealists in Cornwall 85th Anniversary | 19 July - 24 September 2022 | This show celebrated 85 years since a group of Surrealists took a holiday in Cornwall. | Photographs by Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. |
| Roll the Dice | 23 May - 16 July 2022 | Art made by the gallery’s youth climate activist art group. It was shown with gallery artworks that inspired them. | |
| Blake +7 | 2 April - 21 May 2022 | Pop Art from the Falmouth Art Gallery collection. | Works by Sir Peter Blake RA, Tony Foster, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. |
| 'Rodney Peppe: The Storyteller' | Jan - Mar 2022 | This show featured objects, paintings, and animations by the well-known children's artist and author Rodney Peppe. | Episodes of the stop-motion animated series Huxley Pig, shown with the original models from the show. |
Learning and Workshops
The gallery offers free workshops all year round. These are for many different visitors, including families, babies, toddlers, schools, and community groups. They especially welcome groups with special needs and adults with learning difficulties.
Awards and Recognition
Falmouth Art Gallery has been nominated for or won 19 major awards! These include:
- The The Guardian newspaper Kids in Museums Award in 2006 (which they won).
- The Sandford Award for Heritage Education.
- The Gulbenkian Prize, which is a very important arts award in Britain.
