Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

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The Edwardian Baroque architecture of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in Plymouth, Devon, England is the largest museum and art gallery in the city. It was built in 1907 by Thornely and Rooke in Edwardian Baroque style. Its interior was restored in 1954 after being gutted in The Blitz.^[1]

The Museum has collections of fine and decorative arts, natural history and human history. The museum's natural history collection consists of over 150,000 specimens and an historic natural history library and archive. Many prehistoric artefacts from Dartmoor, important Bronze Age and Iron Age material from Mount Batten and medieval and post-medieval finds from Plymouth are found in the human history collection alongside artifacts from Ancient Egypt and other ancient cultures of Europe and the Middle East.

The Art Gallery collections include 750 easel paintings, over 3,000 watercolours and drawings, at least 5,000 prints and a sizeable collection of sculptures. Work by local artists include that of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Robert Lenkiewicz along with work by artists of the 19th century Newlyn School, the influential 20th century St. Ives group of painters, and works by the Camden Town Group.

The building is closed to the public from 24 November 2007 until May 2008 for redevelopment.^[2] Only a small proportion of the extensive permanent collection has ever been displayed. The newly formed galleries will enable the better and more versatile displays of home and visiting presentations.

[edit] Funding

The Museum and Art Gallery is owned and partly funded by Plymouth City Council. The remainder of its operational funding comes from Renaissance in the Regions.

Additional grants are also received for specific projects, acquisitions and conservation duties from funding bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Art Fund, the Wolfson Foundation and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.