Falmouth Art Gallery is an art gallery in Cornwall, with one of the leading art collections in Cornwall and southwest England, which features work by old masters, major Victorian artists, British and French Impressionists, leading surrealists and maritime artists, children's book illustrators, automata, contemporary painters and printmakers. It is located on The Moor, in the upper floor of the Municipal Buildings above the Library in Falmouth, Cornwall.
History
Falmouth Art Gallery in its present form opened on 12 October 1978 and was renovated with grant aid from The Heritage Lottery Fund and other funding bodies, opening on 31 May 1996. Falmouth Art Gallery is a service funded by Falmouth Town Council and is a nationally accredited museum and complies with standards laid down for the Registration of Museums in the United Kingdom. The core of the town's art collection dates from 1923, with gifts made by Alfred de Pass, a South African businessman and art benefactor. This has encouraged other major donations, most notably from Richard Harris, Robert Priseman, Grace Gardner, and Sue and Ron Astles. The gallery has also benefited from purchases made through grant funding from organisations such as The Art Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and the Nerys JohnsonContemporary Art Fund.
The modern collection includes specially commissioned works for seasonal exhibitions such as the Darwin200 exhibitions in 2009, celebrating the arrival in Falmouth of Charles Darwin at the end of his HMS Beagle voyage in 1836. A plaque was erected as part of these celebrations in Falmouth marking the point where Darwin came ashore near the gallery and left by mail coach for Shrewsbury. Exhibitions and the permanent collection includes contemporary Cornish artists such as John Dyer the official Darwin200 artist for the Southwest. In 2016, Cornwall based artist Andrew Lanyon created an exhibition 'The Musings of Creatures - imagined in a barren land' which featured many artist and brought a range of new work into the Falmouth Art Gallery Collection including those by Andrew Litten, Carlos Zapda and David Kemp. Notable previous exhibitions include the "Surrealists on Holiday" in Cornwall and Matisse; a list of previous exhibitions can be found on the website. Exhibitions are mounted in partnership with many organisations including Newlyn School paintings from Penlee House Museum and Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum Truro, Falmouth University and Newquay Zoo. An A to Z of artists in the collection is available on the gallery's website and a digital imaging project is underway to make the collection accessible online
Awards and recognition
Falmouth Art Gallery has been nominated for or won 15 major awards including The Guardian newspaper Kids in Museums Award 2006 and the Gulbenkian Prize, Britain's most prestigious arts award. Falmouth Art Gallery has gained national recognition for its innovative education programme. It was recently selected as one of four national flagship schemes by the Government's Museums and Galleries Lifelong Learning Initiative. The gallery welcomes a wide range of groups from Surestart toddlers to Age Concernsenior citizens.