Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

About

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is a municipally owned public museum and art gallery in the city of Brighton and Hove in the South East of England. It is part of Brighton & Hove Museums. It costs £9.50 for a yearly pass, discounted to £7 for Brighton and Hove residents and students at local universities. The building which houses the collection is part of the Royal Pavilion Estate and was originally built for the Prince of Wales, later George IV and completed in 1805. It was initially intended as a tennis court but had never been finished, and later served as cavalry barracks. After the death of George IV in 1830, his successor King William IV also stayed in the Pavilion on his visits to Brighton. However, after Queen Victoria's last visit to Brighton in 1845, the Government planned to sell the building and grounds. The Brighton Commissioners and the Brighton Vestry successfully petitioned the government to sell the Pavilion to the town for £53,000 in 1850 under the Brighton Improvement (Purchase of the Royal Pavilion and Grounds) Act 1850. In September 1851 it was announced that part of the Pavilion was to be appropriated for annual art exhibitions and two months later the first of these was held. The local talent to which it was confined included Frederick Nash and Copley Fielding. The room devoted to the exhibition was the original South Gallery, now the First Conference Room, but later the exhibitions even spread to the Great Kitchen. The stable building of the Pavilion estate, adjacent to the current museum premises, was used as a museum as early as 1856. It is now the site of the Brighton Dome – a performing arts venue. The museum and art gallery occupied its current situation in the building in 1902. A major refurbishment of the museum and art gallery costing £10 million occurred in 2002. As a result, the traditional entrance to the museum and art gallery became the entrance of the Dome, the latter taking the museum's former entrance. The museum is part of Brighton & Hove Museums, comprising Royal Pavilion Brighton Museum and Art Gallery Booth Museum Hove Museum of Creativity Preston Manor The Decorative Art collection includes British, European and American applied art and design from 17th Century to present day including ceramics, glass, metalwork, furniture and jewellery. It also includes the contemporary craft collection and the Arts Council (South East) craft collection based at Hove Museum & Art Gallery. The Natural Sciences collection includes the Edward Booth collection of British Birds, zoological and geological collections. The collection also holds half a million insects (including butterflies) and a library of 14,000 natural history texts. The World Art collection contains over 13,000 objects and reference materials from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Americas. One of its notable collectors was James Henry Green who collected material from Burma in the 1920s and 30s. The Fine Art Collection comprises sculpture, paintings, mixed media, prints and drawings from 15th – 20th century. There are notable pieces from European Old Masters, specifically the Italian, German, French and Netherlandish schools. The Fine Art collection also contains the Heyer Bequest of 20th Century American paintings by artists, including Frank Stella and Larry Poons. It also includes items donated by Edward James, the collector of surrealist art. The Fashion and Textiles collection contains British, European and North American textiles, costume and accessories from the 16th century to present day. The Toys collection contains toys, dolls and games from 18th century to present day. Its founding collection was the National Toy Museum & Institute of Play, containing over 20,000 items. The Film and Media collection contain equipment relating to

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.