Compton Verney Art Gallery
Compton Verney Art Gallery is an art gallery at Compton Verney, England. It is housed in Compton Verney House, a restored Grade I listed 18th-century mansion surrounded by of parkland which was landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.
Overview
The Art Gallery is home to six permanent collections including Neapolitan art from 1600 to 1800; Northern European medieval art from 1450–1650; British portraits including paintings of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Edward VI and works by Joshua Reynolds; Chinese bronzes including objects from the Neolithic and Shang periods; British folk art; and the Enid Marx/Margaret Lambert Collection of folk art from around the world which inspired the textile designs of 20th century artist Enid Marx.History
In 1993, the Peter Moores Foundation bought the site, including the near-derelict mansion, and gifted it to the specially-created charitable trust Compton Verney House Trust.Following a £45 million building project to restore the Grade-I listed Georgian mansion and add a Stanton Williams designed modern wing to house exhibition spaces and visitor facilities, Compton Verney staged a preview season in 1998 on the newly restored ground floor rooms, showcasing the important British Folk Art Collection, which the PMF had already bought from collector Andras Kalman.
Following this Compton Verney continued to engage with people in the local area via a series of outreach projects and art installations within the grounds.
Compton Verney fully opened to the public as a major, nationally accredited art gallery in March 2004.
The special exhibitions programme offers both historic and contemporary shows and is designed to appeal to a wide audience.
Art exhibitions
The following art exhibitions have been held:;2000
- Anya Gallaccio and Simon Patterson were commissioned to make new work for the Compton Verney grounds.
- Folk Art in Village Halls - Compton Verney took the British Folk Art Collection on a tour around South Warwickshire as part of Museums and Galleries Month
- John Frankland: Untitled Boulder – a vast climbing boulder within the 18th-century ‘Capability’ Brown landscape.
- Tim Brennan: Three Manoeuvres - Brennan’s ‘manoeuvres’ take the form of journeys and walks. Using the model of the historical guided tour, Brennan devised a series of walks in response to the transient state of Compton Verney
- Marcus Coates: CB3CV ChiffChaff - Coates is particularly interested in the relationship between animals and humans. GB3CV ChiffChaff was an attempt to search for parallels between the communication systems of wild birds and amateur radio enthusiasts
- John Kippin: Beauty Harmony Truth: Navigating the English Country House
- Jacqueline Donachie, Ben Sadler, Graham Parker, Matthew Thompson: ‘Walkabout’ – a series of artists’ walks inspired by the local area
- Aleksandra Mir: Plane Landing - Working in partnership with Cameron Balloons in Bristol, Mir created a giant inflatable plane that hovered above the grounds of Compton Verney as if about to land.
- Keith Wilson: Cattle Market – a series of temporary sculptures created for the grounds of Compton Verney.
- Bob and Roberta Smith: Mobile Reality Creator
- Peter Greenaway: Luper – re-visited the setting of Greenaway’s 1982 film The Draughtsman's Contract, a baroque thriller played out against the backdrop of a country house.
- Only Make Believe: Ways of Playing – the work of Francis Alÿs, Ida Applebroog, Clive Barker, Hans Bellmer, Christian Boltanski, Mat Collishaw, Dorothy Cross, Adam Dant, Henry Darger, Erno Goldfinger, Roger Hilton, Joan Jonas, Glenn Kaino, Wassily Kandinsky, Zbigniew Libera, Melissa McGill, Wendy McMurdo, Annette Messager, Piet Mondrian, The Brothers Quay, Paula Rego, Gerrit Rietveld, Laurie Simmons, Kiki Smith, Monika Sosnowska, Jo Stockham, Richard Wentworth, Sarah Woodfine and Kumi Yamashita
- Salvator Rosa: Wild Landscapes
- The American West – works by: Charles M. Russell, Arthur Tait, Charles Schreyvogel and Alfred Jacob Miller; nineteenth-century Plains Indian Ledger drawings; work by Indian prisoners, and Native North American artists including Minerva Cuevas, Kent Monkman, Edward Poitras, James Luna and Cisco Jimenez. Interpretations on the theme by Ed Ruscha, Elaine Reichek, Luigi Ontani and Ed Kienholz were also included
- Luc Tymans: The Go Between
- Susan Hiller: The J Street Project
- Francis Bacon and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
- Van Gogh and Britain: Pioneer Collectors
- The Starry Messenger: Visions of the Universe
- Richard Billingham: Zoo
- Vive La Parisienne: Women through the eyes of the Impressionists
- Liz Rideal: Fall, River, Snow
- Opulance and Anxiety: Landscape Paintings from the Royal Academy of Arts
- Kate Whiteford: Airfield
- The Shadow. Included artists: Doug Aitken, Laurie Anderson, Christian Boltanski, Ceal Floyer, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hill, Tracey Moffatt, Anri Sala, Fiona Tan, Andy Warhol, William Wegman and Francesca Woodman
- Georges de La Tour: Master of Candelight
- The Naked Portrait 1900–2007
- James Coleman
- Alberto Giacometti
- The Fabric of Myth. Including artists: Delaine le Bas, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, William Holman Hunt, Alice Kettle, Henry Moore, Elaine Reichek, Bispo do Rosário, Tilleke Schwarz and Michelle Walker
- Special Display – Portraits from Chequers: Kings, Queens and Revolutionaries
- Jack B. Yeats – Masquerade and Spectacle: The Circus and Traveling Fair
- Fatal Attraction: Diana and Actaeon – The Forbidden Gaze
- Georgian Portraits: Seeing is Believing
- Constable Portraits: The Painter and His Circle
- The Artists Studio – works by: J. M. W. Turner, Eric Ravilious, Gwen John, Paula Rego, Lisa Milroy and Jeremy Deller.
- Francis Bacon: In Camera
- Volcano: Turner to Warhol – works by: Joseph Wright, J. M. W. Turner and Andy Warhol
- Kurt Tong: In Case it Rains in Heaven
- Artists Christmas Cards: Vintage designs from the 1930s to the 1950s
- Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson
- Wool Work: A Sailors Art
- What the Folk say: Contemporary Artist interventions
- Stanley Spencer and the English Garden
- ‘Capability’ Brown and the landscapes of Middle England
- Quentin Blake: As Large as Life
- Remember, remember: A history of fireworks in Britain
- Into the light: French and British painting from Impressionism to the early 1920s – works by: Vanessa Bell, Eugene Boudin, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Walter Sickert, Alfred Sisley, Alexander Stanhope Forbes and Philip Wilson Steer.
- Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variations
- Flight and the Artistic Imagination – works by: Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse, Paul Nash, Peter Lanyon and Hiraki Sawa.
- Tapestry: Weaving the century at Dovecot Studios 1912-2012
- Bellini, Botticelli, Titan…500 years of Italian Art – works by: Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Salvator Rosa and Francesco Guardi.
- Outside In: Central – part of a national project based at Pallant House Gallery, which supports artists who find it difficult to access the art world.
- Empty Nest by Hillary Jack
- Turner and Constable: Sketching from Nature – works from the Tate collection.
- Re-Viewing the landscape: A contemporary response. Including works by: Sarah Woodfine, George Shaw and Paul Ryan.
- A Fantastical Animal Alphabet: Marco’s Animal Alphabet
- Curious Beasts: Animal prints from the British Museum
- Moore Rodin – organised in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation and Musée Rodin, Paris
- Art from Ammunition: Trench art from the First World War
- British Folk Art Exhibition – organised with Tate Britain
Location
Stratford-upon-Avon lies 14.4 kilometres northwest of Compton Verney, with Warwick and Leamington 14.4 kilometres to the north.
The nearest railway stations to Compton Verney Art Gallery are: Warwick Parkway about 16 kilometres, Leamington Spa 16 kilometres and Banbury 22 kilometres
It is 10 kilometres from junction 12 of the M40 motorway and is also close to Birmingham Airport.