Exhibitions — Past

20 artists from the Gallery’s Collections have been selected by Director Stephen Snoddy, one to represent each year of the first 20 years of The New Art Gallery. They will each tell individual stories about particular moments in the history of the Gallery.   Richard Billingham, Sonia Delaunay, Richard Forster, Lucian Freud, Cameron Galt, Andrew Gifford, […]

We Are 20! To mark this special occasion, we are bringing together works of contemporary art collected over the last 20 years, many from artists who have featured in our exhibitions programme. Works span a wide range of media and scale.   We have selected both international artists as well as those closer to home […]

Too Rich a Soil brings together photographers, Arpita Shah, Maryam Wahid and Nilupa Yasmin whose practices are rooted in the exploration of cultural identity.   Through making work about and in collaboration with their families and communities, these artists celebrate the rich and varied roles of women in society. This exhibition provides an opportunity to […]

British/Argentinean artist Amalia Pica is known for her installations and sculptural works, which explore forms of communication and realms of civic participation. For her major solo exhibition, ‘Private & Confidential’, the artist presented new work on the theme of bureaucracy and office material culture, alongside an earlier installation, Joy in Paperwork: The Archive, 2016. This […]

This year, Walsall Society of Artists celebrates their 70th annual exhibition and for the first time and will be shown in the Family Gallery on the Ground Floor.   Every year, a range of works are presented by local artists including portraits, still lifes, urban and rural scenes as well as craft.  Every Saturday, members will demonstrate […]

Sarah Byrne, Rebecca Collins, Mirela Duta, Kayleigh Forrest,    Julia Foster, Nat Jones, Michaela Jurkova, Lorraine McGinnes, Sophie Middleton, Alex Phillips, Ceridwen Powell, Gary Ringroad, Karolina Rybicka, Jackie Sanderson, Andy Shaw, Molly Smith, Ning Wang.   The New Art Gallery is delighted to present, for the second time, the work of 17 artists as part of their final […]

As part of our year celebrating sculpture, we are proud to present the first UK public institution exhibition of the work of American sculptor Kathleen Ryan.   Ryan composes her sculptural installations in a variety of materials from cast iron and precious stones, to found objects including bowling bowls.  The artist has a pre-occupation with […]

Contemporary art collided with metal culture in this unique exhibition created by artist Alan Kane and commissioned as part of Home of Metal.     Artist Alan Kane conceived of the spacious and elegant Floor 3 Galleries as a domestic environment, playfully confounding notions of public and private space and expectations of scale, purpose and value. […]

Sarah Taylor Silverwood uses drawing and language as material to produce publications, animation and installation works. Daphne considers the relationship between women and language, taking the ancient Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo as a focus. This early story, which traces Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne and her transformation into a laurel tree, has been retold […]

Mitti Ka Ghar means “house made of earth” in Urdu. The house has been built by artist Mahtab Hussain with the help of local people. It is based on traditional Kashmiri mud houses, still found in parts of the region. The house is made from straw, timber and clay.   Mitti Ka Ghar Until 31 […]

Elizabeth Magill is one of her generation’s leading painters and this exhibition will present a body of new work.   “A kind of concentrated ambiguity regarding the natural world…” characterises Magill’s paintings. Throughout her career Magill has been drawn to the language of painting using nature and landscape. She draws from them a gorgeous and […]

The 69th annual exhibition by Walsall Society of Artists brings together works in a range of media by local artists.   Paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours are presented along with sculpture and craft. Many of the works are available for sale and every Saturday during the exhibition, members will demonstrate their skills here in the […]

Intermission is a new two-screen projection by London-based artist Grace A Williams commissioned by The New Art Gallery Walsall.   The work focuses on the gaze of two unknown men whose enigmatic portraits appear on nineteenth century photographic slides found by the artist. Hand tinting the images and projecting at a monumental scale, Williams draws […]

Antoinette Alleyne, Debra Arrow, Adam Bryce, Claire Buckerfield (Artist in Residence), Bethany Dugmore, Inkhuk, Tod Jones, Sanjay Kumar (Dean’s Prize Winner, 2017), Xiaojing Liu, Nicola Maxwell, Mac McCoig, Ruth Morby, Simon Morris, Patricia Newell, Glyn Owen, Satinder Parhar, Clair Shepherd, Andreas Singh, James Weston, Charlotte Westwood, David Westwood   The New Art Gallery is delighted […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major solo exhibition by Walsall artist Andrew Tift. The exhibition brings together brand new works combined with selected works from the artist’s past practice and will comprise paintings, drawings, sketchbooks and for the first time, a series of photographs.   Focusing around the genre of […]

  In September 2016, Mahtab Hussain travelled to Kashmir; to the place where his parents had once called home. He was able to meet members of his family for the first time, including his great grandmother, and to witness the kind of life he may have lived, had history taken a different turn.   Born […]

Don’t Look at the Finger is a major new moving-image work by artist Hetain Patel. The film follows a ceremonial encounter between a man and a woman, within a grand architectural setting.     The characters communicate through a feat of choreography that draws on martial arts and signed languages to express a ritualistic coming […]

Mike Nelson is known for his installations, which often take the form of extended labyrinths; immersive environments that involve the viewer. Lionheart, 1997 consists of found materials painstakingly collected from specific locations by the artist and assembled to create a fictional drifter’s camp, complete with skins, traps, darts, trophies and beer cans.   The work […]

To coincide with Wilderness, we are delighted to present a selection of works by acclaimed Latvian-American artist Vija Celmins            (b. 1938) drawn from the ARTIST ROOMS collection. Celmins’s densely layered drawings and prints engage with the natural world; the surface of the ocean, expanses of desert, a spider’s web or star-filled […]

Boyd & Evans, Ralph Fleck, Noémie Goudal, Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Esther Johnson, Richard Long, Boomoon, Ben Rivers, Hiraki Sawa, Emma Stibbon   As part of a season of exhibitions exploring the theme of wilderness, The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present paintings, drawings, photographs and film works by a group of artists whose […]

The 68th annual exhibition by Walsall Society of Artists brings together works in a range of media by local artists. Paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours are presented along with sculpture and craft.   Many of the works are available for sale and every Saturday during the exhibition, members will demonstrate their skills here in the […]

JMW Turner, Christopher Le Brun, Cornelia Parker, Gerry Fox, Idris Khan, Susan Hiller, Bob and Roberta Smith, John Smith, Elizabeth Magill, Dorothy Cross, Jonathan Wright.   The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major exhibition considering the legacy of JMW Turner through the lens of contemporary art, highlighting the ongoing relevance of […]

Barbara Nicholls’ monumental watercolour works emerge by manipulating the behaviour of pigment in ever-increasing quantities of water. They have associations with geological forms touching on collective memories of the experience of natural spaces, of the landscape and of the body.   The artist engages in a performative process to create these works. Large sheets of […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to be hosting the 2017 Artist Teacher Scheme exhibition, an annual showcase celebrating a yearlong commitment to professional development and re-engagement with artistic practice.   The scheme is a course aimed specifically at Artist Educators within the region, running  in partnership with Birmingham City University. The exhibition will […]

Soheila Sokhanvari is an Iranian-born artist whose multidisciplinary work weaves layers of political histories with strange, humorous and mysterious narratives. Sokhanvari is interested in the use of metaphor to speak about inexpressible events, particularly with reference to Iran. Magic realism and the use of metaphor in autocratic countries have historically enabled writers and artists to […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major solo exhibition by Rachel Goodyear, celebrating a brand new body of work. Though still rooted in her love of drawing, her new works introduce a greater freedom of experimentation with a range of materials such as ink, watercolour and collage as well as pencil […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new work by Birmingham-based artist Joanne Masding. Masding is interested in the ways in which we perceive and experience objects and images, particularly within an increasingly digital and immaterial world.   Whether it be in the world of museums and galleries or […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major survey exhibition by artist Idris Khan. The exhibition will bring together significant bodies of work drawing on a range of interests including classical music, the history of art, literature, philosophy and religion. Whether working with photography, painting, sculpture, moving image or installation, Khan employs […]

Andrew Gillespie’s work revolves around the application of print and the appropriation of forms and imagery lifted from popular culture. For his solo exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall, he has created a new constellation of objects; an urban drift of materials and allusions to everyday experience.   Visitors are invited to move through […]

Eva Rothschild is one of the leading sculptors of her generation and has gained extensive international recognition for her work.   Her practice is informed by an ongoing interest in the meeting points between spirituality, power, visual perception and the nature of materiality.   She works across a range of media including steel, leather, resin, […]

Oliver Jones is known for his photorealist chalk drawings, which consider how the media advertises, manipulates and exploits imagery of flesh. For his solo exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall, Oliver has created a new large-scale multi-panel work, Divine (2016), taking the studio of the tattoo artist as its subject.   Emblematic of a […]

Frank Bowling (UK/Guyana) Tiffany Chung (Vietnam/USA) Agnes Denes (USA/Hungary) Shilpa Gupta (India), Amar Kanwar (India) Tania Kovats (UK), Cornelia Parker (UK)                           Maps have continued to provide a potent source material for artists for many years. They provide attempts to create order from […]

Throughout history, artists have looked to boats and the sea as subject matter, sometimes romantically, yet oftern addressing issues around migration, loss, absence, struggle and hope. Today, the subjects seem particularly relevant as images of migrants, attempting to cross into the relative safety of Europe, flash across our TV screens.  The exhibition grapples with these […]

Laura Lancaster is a painter who draws inspiration from forgotten and discarded photographs and home movies, found in flea markets, charity shops and through ebay. Once precious and significant to someone, they are now detached from their original contexts and instead, they become animated through Laura’s luscious, gestural and expressive application of paint. These lost […]

Jan Vanriet is a hugely influential painter and poet from Belgium. He has exhibited widely across the world, representing his country in the biennials of São Paulo, Venice and Seoul yet this is his first exhibition in the UK.   Much of his work is rooted in his family history. His parents met in the […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall have collaborated with Outside In to offer two remote artist residencies. The 6-week long residencies are intended to support participating artists to develop their practice and explore the benefits and possibilities of engaging with an online audience

In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, The New Art Gallery Walsall initiated a series of remote residencies to support artists to produce work from their homes. Departing from the Gallery’s usual emphasis on making and sharing work within the context of the Gallery’s purpose-built studio space, artists were encouraged to find creative approaches to developing […]

In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, The New Art Gallery Walsall initiated a series of remote residencies to support artists to produce work from their homes. Departing from the Gallery’s usual emphasis on making and sharing work within the context of the Gallery’s purpose-built studio space, artists were encouraged to find creative approaches to developing […]

  In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, The New Art Gallery Walsall initiated a series of remote residencies to support artists to produce work from their homes. Departing from the Gallery’s usual emphasis on making and sharing work within the context of the Gallery’s purpose-built studio space, artists were encouraged to find creative approaches to […]

Jack Nelson: 14 January – 23 February 2020 Sarah Byrne: 25 February – 5 April 2020     Sarah Byrne, Chinese Burns, 2019 (detail), thermal print, installation view The New Art Gallery Walsall. Photo: Mark Hinton   Jack Nelson, The Elysian Platinum Fields Project, 2019 (detail), mixed media, installation view The New Art Gallery Walsall. […]

Public presentation: Until 25 August Gareth Proskourine-Barnett and Oliver Tirré have been selected for the Common Ground residency which aims to catalyse new relationships between artists and organisations in the West and East Midlands.     The residency coincides with the TNAGW’s yearlong celebration of sculpture in all its forms, marking the 60th anniversary of               […]

Andrew Lacon works with sculpture and imagery to question how materials are understood and valued in different contexts and historical periods, particularly in relation to public display.   His work is informed by his early encounters with art, involving visits to municipal museums and churches but little direct engagement with contemporary art objects, which were […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to host the second of two 2018 graduates from the MA Fine Art course at the University of Wolverhampton. The students were selected following their presentations of degree work in an exhibition on Floor 3 in September 2018.   Working in succession over the residency period, the selected […]

Working with photomontage, Birmingham-based artist Lily Wales creates 2D and sculptural works that reference the language of military weaponry. During her residency, Lily will explore the history of ‘Blue Streak’, a ballistic missile developed in Britain in the late 1950s. The key that formed part of the firing mechanism was manufactured locally by Century Locks […]

To mark The New Art Gallery Walsall’s 18th birthday in 2018, the Gallery invited proposals from West Midlands-based artists in response to the theme: The Building as Material.   Following this Open Call, Birmingham-based artist Mark Essen has been selected to develop a new body of work from the Artists’ Studio, taking terracotta, a clay-based […]

Leah Carless works with sculpture to explore ideas around making and materiality and the emotional qualities we attach to to physical objects and processes. Her practice involves the investigation of notions of physicality in contemporary society; in particular, what it might mean to have a fleshy body in a consumer culture saturated by visual imagery. […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall and Eastside Projects are working in partnership to offer Glasshouse, two opportunities for five artists to spend time in residence  in the Gallery’s Artists’ Studio this summer. Residency 1 was developed in collaboration with Spike Island (Bristol) and Bluecoat (Liverpool) and saw three artists from different cities share work space […]

Steve Evans’s work is informed by an interest in architectural detail, geometry and space. His drawings incorporate the techniques and formal qualities of technical drawing, suggesting the qualities of precision, regimentation and measurement associated with CAD (computer-aided design).   Unlike CAD-generated drawings, however, Evans’s one-off works contain minute inconsistencies, attesting to their hand-drawn origin and […]

Twenty years ago, London-based architects Caruso St John were selected to design a new gallery for Walsall after winning a high profile international competition. Since opening in 2000, the resulting 37-metre-high building, clad in terrocotta tiles and punctuated by large windows, has been a source of inspiration for artists.   In June 2016, The New […]

Ruth Claxton is known for her large-scale, site responsive architectural installations, which often utilise materials that are ‘activated’ by a viewer’s physical presence. She will use her residency to experiment with retro-reflective pigment, a distinctly contemporary material most commonly used in cycling jackets to illuminate the wearer in a headlamp’s beam.   Following a period […]

To coincide with the 60th anniversary year of Jacob Epstein’s death, in 2019 we are celebrating sculpture in all forms throughout our Collections programme.   The Sculpture in Focus trail positions a key piece of contemporary sculpture from our Permanent Collection within each of our ten themed collection rooms, featuring diverse artists including Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, […]

As part of our year celebrating sculpture, to mark the 60th anniversary of Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), we are incredibly fortunate to be able to bring this iconic Epstein masterpiece from the Tate collection to Walsall for the first time.   This loan has been made possible through The Ferryman Project: Sharing Works of Art which […]

HOME presents a selection of contemporary works exploring themes around home and homeland. The works span the last 60 years and are sourced from the Gallery’s Permanent Collection.   The art works touch upon a wide range of topics including; cultural identity and heritage, material possessions and personal collections, play, imagination and fairytales.   In […]

  This major solo exhibition by acclaimed contemporary sculptor Daniel Silver celebrates the Gallery’s longstanding commitment to sculpture, and making links between historic and contemporary art, in the 60th anniversary year of Jacob Epstein’s death.   Silver is pushing the boundaries of sculpture in new and innovative ways, though clearly acknowledging the legacy of art […]

A British Museum Partnership Spotlight Loan   Linked to the 2018 British Museum exhibition Rodin and the art of ancient Greece, this Spotlight loan from the British Museum brings key national works to three regional galleries across the UK, including The Thinker, from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.                 […]

This display looks at 10 contemporary artists who have a distinct body of work in our Permanent Collection.   Work by each artist is positioned in relation to one of our key collection themes and presented as a trail through the Floor 1 and 2 galleries. Included are recent acquisitions by Frank Auerbach, Rachel Goodyear, […]

In this body of work, recently acquired for our Permanent Collection, Parker has re-appropriated a group of found glass photographic negatives of antique silverware, continuing her interest in objects and their histories, the material of silver, and the medium of photography.       Artists in Focus – Celebrating Museums & Wellbeing exhibition guide

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of our Permanent Collection in 2017, we invited the public to vote for their favourite works for the annual re-display of our Collections Galleries. A special Winners Room, of the most popular works from each of our collection themes, can be found on Floor 2, with a trail of the […]

This exhibition launches the Midlands Art Papers online research resource, developed by the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham.   The project aims to develop new research, unearth hidden histories, and make links between the wealth of material in the region’s public art collections.  This inaugural exhibition uses […]

Seven Kinds of Magic comprises original illustrations by Quentin Blake for 7 books in which magic appears in different forms,  shown alongside works from our Permanent Collection selected by the artist, which link to each of the illustrated texts.   Contribute your own artworks to a Quentin Blake wallpaper backdrop, relax in our reading area, […]

    What are the famous landmarks of Walsall? How has the landscape of Walsall changed over time? What will the landscape of Walsall look like in the future? Many scenes of Walsall have been collected since the establishment of Walsall’s public art collection in 1892.  In this exhibition, to help celebrate the Permanent Collection’s […]

Throughout 2016 we have been displaying some of the newest additions to our Permanent Collection, in the lead up to its 125th anniversary of its formation in 2017.     The New Art Gallery Walsall owns jointly with Birmingham Museums Trust a collection of international art on the theme of the Metropolis, which was generously […]

As part of a three year partnership with Tate, the 2016 Interventions into The Garman Ryan Collection are drawn from Tate’s renowned collection.  16 Tate artworks have been paired with related works in The Garman Ryan Collection, linked either by artist, subject or theme. Included are key examples by Raoul Dufy, Eric Gill, Augustus John, […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is one of the cultural organisations working with Arts Connect and Trinity College to offer the ‘Discover from Home’ Arts Award.   The ‘Discover from Home’ Arts Award is a new digitally available course that can be completed from home. Devised by Arts Connect and Trinity College, London, The New […]

We are privileged to be the first venue of 2018 to exhibit Hans Holbein’s A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling, as the centrepiece in our Family Gallery. Shown alongside are complementary works from our Permanent Collection encompassing key collections themes Portraits and Animals and Birds.                 […]

Each year, students from the BEd Degree course in Primary Teacher Education at The University of Wolverhampton (Walsall Campus), engage with the Gallery in a partnership project.   This ongoing relationship aims to develop the students’ knowledge and understanding of teaching art and to equip them with the skills and confidence to engage their own […]

Patrick Goodall’s residency will explore how tools facilitate production, extending the hand of the artist, mechanic or model maker as well as the DIY hobbyist. A collector of hammers and other hand tools, Goodall will transfer the contents of his tool shed to the studio, creating work with and about tools and ‘clocking in’ each […]

The 67th annual exhibition by Walsall Society of Artists brings together works in a range of media by local artists.  Paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours are presented along with sculpture and craft.   Many of the works are available for sale and every Saturday during the exhibition, members will demonstrate their skills here in the […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to be hosting the 2016 Artist Teacher Scheme exhibition.     The scheme is a continuing professional development course run in partnership between The New Art Gallery Walsall, Ikon Gallery and Birmingham City University. It offers art educators support and opportunity to re-engage with their own development as […]

Throughout this year we are displaying some of the newest acquisitions to our Permanent Collection, in the lead up to its   125th anniversary in 2017. Our collecting policy prioritises include works related to the themes in The Garman Ryan Collection, or by artists who have been part of our temporary exhibitions programmes.   The New […]

Each year, students from the BEd Degree course in Primary Teacher Education at The University of Wolverhampton (Walsall Campus), engage with the Gallery in a partnership project.   This ongoing relationship aims to develop the students’ knowledge and understanding of teaching art and to equip them with the skills and confidence to engage their own […]

Timothy Betjeman, David Borrington, Jessie Brennan, Julian Bovis, Sally Cutler, Nathan Ford, Stephanie Grainger, Anne Guest, Susie Hamilton, Peter Haugh, Michelle Heron, Michael Johnson, Oliver Jones, Tony Kenyon, Myles Linley, Graham Martin, Julia Midgley, Joe Munro, Dominic Negus, Laura Oldfield Ford, Cherry Pickles, Hilary Powell, Teresa Robertson, Robin Sukatorn, Emily Vanns, Nettie Wakefield, Emma Wilde, […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to be hosting the 2015-16 Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary, an annual residency established by disability-led arts organisation, Shape, to support mid-career disabled artists to develop their practice and profile.   This year’s recipient, digital and video artist Caglar Kimyoncu, will use the bursary to extend his research into […]

Saturday 5 March, 2-4pm Free, drop-in   Artist Caglar Kimyoncu will share audio bites and film clips gathered from his research in Walsall.     Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary: Caglar Kimyoncu This year’s recipient, digital and video artist Caglar Kimyoncu, will use the bursary to extend his research into the issue of the militarisation of […]

Rock Drill (c.1913-15) is Epstein’s most radical and celebrated sculpture, often described as ‘the best thing he has ever done’.  The totemic sculpture represents ‘a dramatic, revolutionary moment when sculpture in Britain first became uncompromisingly modern.’  However between the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916 Epstein destroyed the original Rock Drill, discarding the […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major survey exhibition by British artist Mat Collishaw, the first in a UK public gallery for over ten years. The exhibition includes photography, film, sculpture and installation and testifies to the richness and breadth of Collishaw’s practice, highlighting and exploring some of the overriding themes […]

This year, the 66th annual exhibition by Walsall Society of Artists will take place during the summer.   The exhibition brings together works in a range of media by local artists. Many of the works are available for sale and every Saturday during the exhibition, members will demonstrate their skills here in the Gallery. Come […]

Small Worlds 21 May – 6 September 2015   AirSpace Gallery (Andrew Branscombe, Anna Francis, Glen Stoker), Graham Chorlton, Rita Donagh, Richard Forster, Cameron Galt, Andreas Gefeller, Stuart Layton, Naiza Khan, Lucy McLauchlan, Laura Oldfield Ford, Mark Power and Rashid Rana. Today, we live in a fluid culture where, within our towns and cities, different […]

Artist Teachers exhibition goes on display Saturday 25 July – Sunday 30 August 2015   Art teachers in the region are showing their own art skills in a display at The New Art Gallery Walsall.  The exhibition shows work in progress from The Artist Teacher Scheme course.    All the artists studied contemporary art at […]

St Ives Artists from The Clive Beardsmore Gift 2 May – 23 August 2015     This in-focus exhibition from The Clive Beardsmore Collection examined a body of work by artists associated with the Cornish harbour town of St Ives, which during and after the Second World War was home to a wide range of […]

Siân Macfarlane We Are Illuminated 1 May – 26 July 2015 Floor 4   Fairs, carnivals and pageants, theatres and cinemas, the travelling bio-scopes of Pat Collins and the famed Walsall illuminations; an exploration of the Borough of Walsall at leisure and in celebration…   Over the past 12 months, West Midlands based artist Siân […]

FOUND 30 January – 3 May 2015 Floor 3   FOUND brings together seven contemporary artists who work with found images. Transforming, cutting, embellishing and re-working visual material sourced from the internet, flea markets, magazines and discarded personal collections, the artists enter into the histories and narratives present in strangers’ images. The exhibition explores themes […]

Contemporary British artist Darren Banks has created a new installation based around the extraordinary life of Churton Fairman (1924-1997). Better known by his alias Mike Raven, Fairman started out as a ballet dancer and photographer, before becoming a pirate radio dj, and one of the first presenters on BBC Radio One. He was also a […]

Sikander Pervez 30 January – 19 April 2015 Floor 4   Sikander Pervez transforms mundane objects such as chairs, walls and plinths into poetic visual forms by challenging our perceptions of the usual functions associated with them.  He will be creating a brand new sculptural installation for his first solo exhibition since graduating from Staffordshire […]

Lee Bul After Bruno Taut (Devotion to Drift) 4 December 2014 – 18 January 2015   The New Art Gallery is delighted to present this new work by South Korean artist Lee Bul which was commissioned jointly by The New Art Gallery, Birmingham Museums Trust and Ikon Gallery with support from the Art Fund as […]

Martin Parr – Black Country Stories Until 11 January 2015 Floor 3   Over the last 4 years, Magnum photographer, Martin Parr, has created a photographic portrait and archive of life in the Black Country through photography, film and oral histories.     Martin has made many visits to Walsall, Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley, meeting a […]

Walsall Society of Artists Annual Exhibition 24 October – 30 November 2014 Floor 4   The annual display of paintings, drawings, prints and crafts by members of Walsall’s local society. Many works are for sale and demonstrations will be held every Saturday throughout the exhibition. Preview Thursday 23 October 2014, 6-8pm Join us for the […]

Back to Front: 40 Permanent Collection Gems To celebrate the Ruby Anniversary of the Garman Ryan Collection These interventions have been personally selected by our Front of House Team to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Garman Ryan Collection. The forty works have been chosen from our Permanent Collection and are displayed as a trail […]

“I feel we are dealing with dreams and are about to house them in a solid Midlands setting for prosperity. How delightful.” Lady Kathleen Epstein (Excerpt from a letter written by Lady Kathleen Epstein to Walsall Council, 3 December 1937. Beth Lipkin Archive, The New Art Gallery Walsall)   When Lady Kathleen Epstein gave the […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a new single-screen video work by British artist Gillian Wearing.   Wearing is known for her films and photographs, which explore our public personas and private lives. We Are Here sees the artist return to the area in and around Sandwell where she grew up and […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in a public gallery by French artist Noémie Goudal. Comprising new photographs (‘Observatoires’, ‘Satellites’, ‘Tectonique’) and stereoscopic images, The Geometrical Determination of the Sunrise will also see Goudal extend her photographic practice into the area of film and installation for the first […]

For more than forty years, Richard Long’s art practice has been rooted in nature and defined by walking as a creative act. His solitary walks have taken him through remote areas of Britain and as far afield as Nepal, Africa, Mexico, Bolivia and the Antarctica. Long’s journeys and actions are documented with photographs, maps or […]

As this year is the 40th anniversary of the Garman Ryan Collection, gifted to Walsall by two inspirational women, Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan, this exhibition celebrates the women who have formed part of our Permanent Collection over the last forty years.   There are lots of stories of influential women intertwined in the Garman […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present the first comprehensive exhibition of prints in the UK by Richard Long (b. Bristol, UK, 1945). Since the late 1960s, Long’s art practice has been rooted in the simple act of walking. His journeys and actions are documented with photographs, maps, wall works and printed statements. […]

Floor 2 Free Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian Until 2 March 2014 Floor 2   Studio Prints Until 15 April 2014 Floor 1 The New Art Gallery Walsall is proud to present  together for the first time in a public institution the work of artists and printmakers Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian. The couple have […]

Chris Clinton uses familiar objects and reclaimed materials to create artworks that refer obliquely to contemporary popular culture and our disregard for out-dated media. This exhibition will bring together the artist’s full series of paper-coil dartboards for the first time, alongside a new sculpture spectacularly realised using multiple reels of VHS magnetic tape.     […]

Chiharu Shiota is renowned for her dramatic, immersive installations which frequently utilise found objects such as clothing, shoes, old furniture, vintage suitcases and doors and windows from demolished and derelict buildings. Such items resonate with personal and emotional if elusive histories. Chiharu’s installations alter and energise the physical and architectectual space, challenging our perceptions of […]

George Grosz (1893-1959) was one of the greatest satirical artists of the 20th century. A co-founder of the Berlin Dada group and a revolutionary in the 1920s, he made hundreds of drawings depicting the vices and injustices of a society on the brink of economic and moral collapse. This exhibition will feature works from his […]

Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian Until 2 March 2014 Floor 2   Studio Prints Until 15 April 2014 Floor 1 The New Art Gallery Walsall is proud to present  together for the first time in a public institution the work of artists and printmakers Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian. The couple have won international print […]

Walsall Society of Artists: 64th Annual Exhibition 6 December 2013 – 12 January 2014   Local artists present a range of paintings, drawings, watercolours and 3D works in the 64th annual exhibition by the Walsall Society of Artists. Some works are available to buy and demonstrations are held at the gallery every Saturday throughout the […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present a major solo exhibition of paintings by Ged Quinn.  The exhibition will survey Quinn’s practice over the last four years, bringing together paintings from private collections in Europe and America as well as a brand new body of work created especially for this project.     […]

He Tried to Internalise Everything is from the 1990s series Internal Affairs, a group of glass-walled cells containing everyday objects such as tools, clothing and furniture arranged in scenes that suggest a human presence. Hirst was inspired by a 1990 crime-thriller film in which a Los Angeles police department sets up an independent body to […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present an extended display of works by one of the most exciting, challenging and influential artists of our time, Damien Hirst.  The exhibition is presented as part of ARTIST ROOMS On Tour and takes place across the Garman Ryan Galleries.   The exhibition provides a unique opportunity […]

Jacob Epstein and his work are central to the Garman Ryan Collection. During 2013 the collection acts as host for Damien Hirst’s work enabling visitors to view both artist’s work together.   Spanning the two ends of the 20th century, these  two great artists share many similarities. Both artists were and still are regarded as […]

Caroline Achaintre, Edwin Burdis, Slawomir Czajkowski (Zbiok), Shaun Doyle and Mally Mallinson, Ruth Ewan, Andrew Gilbert, Joel Gray, Tod Hanson, Geoffrey Ireland, kennardphillipps, Cedar Lewisohn (curator), Kieron Livingstone and Ian Allison, Alexis Milne, Laura Oldfield Ford, Max Reeves, Clunie Reid, John Russell, Francis Thorburn, Vicky Wright.   A heckler is someone who tries to unsettle […]

Our Creatures 26 April – 30 June 2012 Floor 3   To complement The Nature of the Beast, artist Mark Fairnington has curated an historic exhibition which focuses on portraits of animals. Images and objects are brought together that depict in particular the domestic and local relationships between people and animals and show how these could […]

This exhibition brings together a diverse range of contemporary artists, who through their work, confront and challenge our attitudes towards the natural world, and in particular, the animal kingdom.     Humankind has long been fascinated by animals, who in turn, have been subjected to research, collection, categorisation, documentation, display and experimentation.  Each of the […]

Students from Walsall College have come together to co-curate Let Go of Certainty, an exhibition inspired by some of the universal themes in Damien Hirst’s work, such as death, destruction, belief and rebirth. This powerful display features contemporary works drawn from the Gallery’s collection by Vidya Gastaldon, Phil Brooks, Christopher Le Brun, Dorothy Cross, Christian […]

Jochem Hendricks’ works are playful, challenging and provocative.  They are often highly engaging on an aesthetic level, yet beneath the surface lie elaborate back-stories which frequently test the boundaries of ethics and morality.       Artists have traditionally been masters of artifice and illusion and exactly how Hendricks engages with this tradition is open to […]

Local artists present a range of paintings, drawings, watercolours and 3D works in the 63rd annual exhibition by Walsall Society of Artists. Some works are available to buy and demonstrations are held at the gallery every Saturday throughout the exhibition.   Walsall Society of Artists Demonstrations   Saturday 5 January 2013        –  Mr T Arnold […]

Jodie Carey works in a wide range of media, exploring ideas of time, memory and materiality, of time passing, memories fading, of absence and loss and ultimately the fragility and vulnerability of human life. Her brand new works, commissioned and created especially for this exhibition, include a large-scale sculptural installation, with large plaster works meticulously […]

Over the last 25 years Fiona Rae has established herself as one of the leading painters of her generation with a distinctive body of work, full of restless energy, humour and complexity, which has set out to challenge the modern conventions of painting.   Rae draws her influences and ideas from a huge selection of […]

Harminder Judge creates sculpture, digital work and live performances.  His influences are vast and varied and include religious iconography and occultism, Indian culture and popular Western culture.    During his recent residency at The New Art Gallery Walsall, Judge became interested with the ways in which the supernatural is represented in works from the collections […]

The Rootless Forest is a mobile artwork, a mini-forest made of real trees and soil planted on a boat that travels at walking pace along the Birmingham and Black Country Canals. From The Rootless Forest we hear recorded stories about adjustment, homecoming and relocation told by two families from the military and UK Afghan communities […]

Make Room2 is the sixth of a series of year long displays which uses contemporary works from The New Art Gallery Walsall’s Permanent Collections to make interventions within the Garman Ryan Collection’s themed rooms.  Enabling us to view the contemporary works alongside similarly themed historic artworks and allowing us to make connections between old art […]

Mark Power was commissioned by Multistory to create a series of urban landscapes responding to his experience of the Black Country – an area hit particularly hard by the economic recession. For many years, Mark’s work has sought to reveal the beauty of the everyday and the overlooked and there is a quiet yet simmering splendour in […]

  A street can be where we live, where we work or where we shop.  It can be a focus for bustling activity and a celebration of diversity.  It can also be a site for conflict, anxiety, loneliness, alienation and economic gloom.    This exhibition brings together artists who explore the darker side of the […]

As a young artist in the early 30’s Isobel Rawsthorne was studio assistant to Jacob Epstein and in the 1930’s and 40’s Alberto Giacometti, was her closest artistic and romantic relationship. Her drawings in this exhibition have a connection to his famously skeletal sculptures. Rawsthorne’s friendship with Francis Bacon in the 50’s and 60’s culminated […]

Floor 1, Long Gallery   Art teachers and industry professionals who are also artists are exhibiting work in progress from the 2011-2012 ATS course. The artists are available to meet and chat with visitors on Saturday 28th July.

Artists include: May Cornet, Leo Fitzmaurice, Neville Gabie, Darryl Georgiou, Ming de Nasty, Andrew Tift, Mo Wilson   Designed to coincide with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Good Sport celebrates the spirit of taking part, whether as avid participant, spectator or collector.  The exhibition celebrates the passion, creativity, ingenuity and sense of community […]

This exhibition consists of more than 40 small scale collages realised from images culled and cut from fashion magazines. The artist recomposes these colours, forms and found images, creating an effect that is both hilarious and charming.           Image credit:  Eric Bainbridge, Untitled, 2009, Cut Paper, 22 x 29 cm.’Courtesy of […]

Collage is perhaps the default medium of the 21st century: it is common place now to sample, appropriate and mix material from across a vast range of media.  New technology has made it easy to assemble and customise images, sound and text, and for instant publishing via the internet.    Transmitter/Receiver traces some of the […]

Artists include:  Christiane Baumgartner, Graham Chorlton, Laura Oldfield Ford, George Shaw, Barry Thompson, Paul Winstanley   There is a Place…brings together a group of artists who explore our psychic connectivity to landscape.  The drawings, paintings and prints within the exhibition reveal ‘a sense of place’ as seemingly generic urban and suburban views evoke personal and […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is delighted to present Zarina Bhimji’s latest film Yellow Patch which makes its world première simultaneously in Walsall and at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.   The film was shot on location in Mumbai, Kutch and Gujarat.  Focusing primarily on landscapes and interiors, the artist has created a poetic and evocative […]

Black Country Stories brings renowned Magnum photographer, Martin Parr, on a photographic journey across the Black Country.  Starting in 2010 and finishing in 2014, Martin is visiting markets, temples, factories, social clubs, tea dances, dog training classes, summer fetes and a whole mixture of other places in Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Dudley.    This special […]

Inspired by and using the gallery’s collections to their full potential, 20 Art and Design students from Walsall College will curate and present an exhibition about mental health.   Behind Closed Doors will explore issues around depresion, recovery, inner turmoil, intense emotions, highs and lows and will feature photography, painting, prints and sculpture, presented through […]

(The gallery will be closed between Christmas and New Year, re-opening on 3 January 2012)     The annual exhibition by the local society. Many of the works are for sale. Demonstrations are held each Saturday during the exhibition.

An Arts Council Collection exhibition curated by Katrina Brown and Caroline Douglas   This exhibition brings together three artists who each use an abstract, allusive vocabulary of object-making to investigate the way we create meaning through form.  Their chosen media and techniques are very different, though in each case familiar materials are made unsettlingly strange.  […]

This extraordinary body of photographic work was originally instigated by a commission from The New York Times Magazine.  The artist was asked to create a photo-essay that reflected on the collapse of the US housing market. Shot initially in 6 US states over a period of one month, the work focuses on 16 carefully researched […]

In late September 2005, the photographer Robert Polidori travelled to New Orleans to record the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Arriving at night he found few remaining inhabitants amongst the devastated ruins of the city. The next day he began to think of his work as a way of mapping the lives of the absent […]

As a student at Walsall Art School Graham Benton first travelled to St Ives in 1956. This was the start of a life long love of the landscapes, the sea and the artistic communities which have gathered in Cornwall for nearly two centuries.   Travelling from Walsall to St Ives for inspiration at least twice […]

This exhibition uses some of the contemporary works acquired by the gallery in recent years to make interventions within the Garman Ryan Collection’s themed rooms.   The display dynamically merges together historic art and contemporary art, enabling viewers to explore the many usual and exciting connections between new art and old making room for new […]

Leo Fitzmaurice collects, contains and re-edits the visual noise that forms part and parcel of 21st century life.  He will transform the Floor 4 gallery space into a sea of colour through the use of mass produced printed material.    By carefully layering the printed matter, Leo will re-animate the abundance of advertising information which […]

Mark Titchner works in a wide variety of media, often combining new technologies with more traditional craft techniques.  An overarching interest is the ways in which communication engenders belief.  Text commonly features within his work and he draws from a wide range of sources including song lyrics, advertising slogans, corporate mission statements and political manifestos.  […]

A compulsive collector, a jumbler of icons and a pioneer of Pop, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) is equally revered for his mechanistic sculptures and his kaleidoscopic print projects.   The artist, who described himself as ‘a wizard in Toytown’, transformed the mundane, the derelict and the mass produced into images that zap with electric eclecticism […]

This exhibition explores the work of Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) in relation to the themes of light and literature. Described as a visionary landscapist, Palmer played a key role in the development of Romantic art.   Bringing together works from The British Museum, London, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Walsall’s own collections, […]

Toby Ziegler’s sculptural installation consists of new sculptures and readymades inspired by found images of historical art objects; an Iberian stone head stolen from the Louvre for Pablo Picasso; a neo-classical sculpture of a panther, a pair of Staffordshire pottery dogs; a Hellenic sculpture of a hermaphrodite couple and a classical Venus.  All of these […]

‘Growing up in the Black Country was the best thing that ever happened to me’ Brian Griffin, 2010   Brian Griffin was born in Birmingham in 1948 but spent his childhood in Lye, in the Black Country before departing for Manchester College of Art in 1969 to study photography.  He has since gone on to […]

This sculptural installation was originally shown as part of the exhibition Niet Normaal at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam in 2009.  Artists from all over the world were invited to respond to the question, what is normal?      The Bonfire consists of a number of previous works by Bob and Roberta Smith as […]

Frank Sidney Smith was born in 1928 in the Thanet Union Workhouse, just as that oppressive system was ending. He never knew who his father was and was raised in a children’s home, while his mother remained in the workhouse. His wife, a schizophrenic, died from lithium poisoning after being steadily overdosed by her hospital. […]

New Ways of Collaborating is a unique partnership between artist Bob and Roberta Smith and Archive Curator Neil Lebeter, which began in September 2009 and is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England. Visit the Archive Gallery on the 1st floor to see the results of Bob and Neil’s collaboration so far. […]

Curated by Bob and Roberta Smith Floors 3, 4, Foyer and Window Box.   Artists: Liz Arnold, Bobby Baker, Anne Bean, Efi Ben-David, Louise Bourgeois, Sean Burn, Hannah Camille, Helen Chadwick, Vlasta Delimar, Tracey Emin, Sir Jacob Epstein, Theodore Garman, Geoffrey Ireland, Daniel Johnston, Poshya Kakl, Jeff Keen, Yayoi Kusama, Sarah Lucas, Annette Messager, Lucia […]

Walsall Society of Artists present their annual exhibition. Many of the works will be for sale and demonstrations will take place at the weekend.

Mohamed Bourouissa, Semyon Faibisovich, Jochem Hendricks, Jitish Kallat, Ola Kolehmainen, Aleksandra Mir, Sharmila Samant, Dayanita Singh, Grazia Toderi and Zhang Enli.   This major international exhibition brought together a diverse group of artists whose work is concerned with the modern urban environment.  Works were acquired through Art Fund International, the Art Fund’s £5 million scheme […]

Bruce Mclean has always been a rebel within the art world. In 1965 he abandoned conventional studio production in favour of impermanent sculptures using materials such as water. In a 1971 performance he used his own body to parody the poses of Henry Moore’s celebrated reclining figures. When in 1972 he was offered an exhibition […]

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Hächler set herself the task of creating a portrait a day for a year within a structural size and time limit. Photographing people she met during the day and painting in the evening, her self imposed task forced her to work through many problems of portraiture instead of discarding the results.   The 365 portraits […]

Epstein was undoubtedly the most versatile and famous portrait sculptor of the twentieth century. He explored the genre throughout his long working life, from his early pioneering work such as Baby Asleep in 1902 and Romily John 1907 through to initimate portraits of both his children and family and portraits of famous poets such as […]

Club Liberty is celebrating the transient identities of youth, afforded by a choice of music. Music and the experience of belonging is a deeply personal experience and this documentary project is capturing youth culture in a chosen enviroment.   Club Liberty celebrates the changing face of youth culture through choices of music and the places […]

The New Art Gallery is pleased to present the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009, which was recently shown at the National Portrait Gallery, London.   The exhibition consists of 60 photographs which were selected from an open submission of 6,312 prints by 2,451 international phtoographers. The judging panel included The New Art Gallery’s Director […]

Halim Al-Karim, Glenn Brown, Nae Bunthita Indhawong, Faye Claridge, Hew Locke, Eleanor Moreton, Boo Ritson, Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, Zhang Xiaogang.   This exhibition brings together a diverse group of artists who engage with the history and iconography of portraiture to create works that relate less to spedific individuals and more to contemporary issues around […]

For one weekend only an exhibition by art teachers and industry professionals who are also artists.   The exhibition shows work in progress with the artists available to meet and chat with visitors.

Matthew Houlding is renowned for his beautifully detailed sculptures of imagined futuristic buildings which pay homage to the utopian zeal of modern architecture. He frequently draws inspiration from ideas of architectural design and explores the relationships between intersecting materials, planes and colours.   For this exhibition, Matthew has created a significant body of new work […]

Korean artist Sun K Kwak creates large scale drawings that use the specific architectural space as the “canvas” for her work.  The drawings appear epic, gestural and flowing but in fact are made from tearing black masking tape and applying it to the wall in layers.  The process is both intellectually and physically demanding. Sun […]

Adam Dant makes lavish and richly layered drawings which take the viewer on an inventive and imaginative visual journey. His subjects are always meticulously researched and the resulting works can take many forms including maps, charts and visual allegories. The elaborate scenes he depicts are often located in recognisable spaces, places and institutions. For this […]

The French painter, sculptor and designer Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the twentieth centuries most influential artists. His vibrant works are celebrated for their extraordinary richness and luminosity of colour. Matisse continued creating highly original works into his eighties when, confined to his bed, he produced his famous cut outs, using paper hand painted […]

This final major show from Walsall College HND Fine Art Students Katie Hobday and Sharon Powers is an enquiry into the implications of everyday events in their  lives, both past and present and how they will inevitably have an effect on the future.   The exhibition is a collaboration showing an enquiry into motherhood. For […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall is 10!   This exhibition features a consciously eclectic range of artists whose works are linked through broad reference to the party, a theme which will extend across music, singing, dancing, greetings cards, food and drink, dress and decorations. Whilst the show mainly comprises of contemporary art, a selection of […]

The New Art Gallery Walsall opened in February 2000 bringing artists from all over the world to Walsall and creating a cultural focus for the town.   Over the ten years since opening we have worked with hundreds if not thousands of artists, locally, nationally and internationally, creating exhibitions, residencies, workshops and performances which have […]

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A treasure trove of mysterious objects hidden on shelves, in cases, glass vessels, suitcases and assorted containers excitingly revealing their stories and fairy tale narratives. Fairy Tales have always been an expression of a whole spectrum of human experience and emotion; they are capricious and whimsical , mercurial and quixotic.  They are full of dark […]

For this series of works, Steffi has photographed rows of boarded up terraced houses in Greater Manchester. A collaborative project with Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow.

  Bobby Baker, Han Bing, Helen Chadwick, Gayle Chong Kwan, Lia Anna Hennig, Anya Gallaccio, Antony Gormley, Subodh Gupta, Aaron Head, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Anthony Key, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Rainer Prohaska, Manuel Saiz, Jana Sterbak and Karen Tam.   Pot Luck brings together 17 internationally acclaimed contemporary artists who explore the continuing relationship […]

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This new exhibition invites us to look at portraits and the artists’ muse, painted and sculpted by both famous and unknown artists. The men and women in the portrait work both historic and contemporary taken from Walsall’s expanding art collections.   They include the striking Pre-Raphaelite muse, Elizabeth Siddal by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the young […]

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. This unique collection of early illustrative works dating from the 1950’s to 1962 demonstrates Warhol’s move between the worlds of commercial advertising and the New York Pop art scene, whilst revealing an alternative side of his colourful character.   Throughout 2009, […]

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This exhibition takes the figure of the angel as a starting point for an exploration of Blake’s ideas about the body and spirit. Famously, Blake often had visions of angels and even claimed to converse with them, he felt imagination was the uniting principle and men and angels were intimately linked. Blake experienced visions throughout […]

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The New Art Gallery Walsall collects many diverse art works both historic and contemporary. Fitting seamlessly in the Garman Ryan Collection, the contemporary works enliven the thematic display whick Kathleen Epstein decided upon when she gave the amazing gift of the collection to Walsall in 1972.   Their presence enables us to view the contemporary […]

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Ming De Nasty has been commissioned to make photographic portraits of people from the markets and high streets of the main towns of the borough, Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Darlaston, Walsall and Willenhal. Many hundreds of people have participated in this mamouth portrait project which will be displayed in the form of a giant wall hanging […]

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Many people define Daley Thompson as Englands greatest athelete Born in Worcester Park, England in 1958 he is of Nigerian and Scottish heritage. He is a former decathelete from England winning the decathlongold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 amd 1984, breaking the world record for the event four times. After winning two Olympic […]

Andrew Jackson first visited Cape Town, South Africa in 2005. Over a two month period he produced a series of images examining the lives of a diverse group of friends, using this as a starting point to explore the further construction of a ‘new South Africa’.   This initial trip formed the basis of an […]

Joana Vasconcelos creates sculptures, frequently on a very large scale, from familiar, domestic objects. They reference art, popular culture and national identity and cleverly combine mass produced items with elements of handicraft such as crochet or knitting. Yet as structures, they are also meticulously and ingeniously engineered. They can be witty, elegant, engaging and provocative. […]

Even now after nearly 100 years Epstein’s Rock Drill sculpture still has the power to excite and disturb. His ruthless robotic vision of the future of mankind has still not yet materialised in the 21st Century, making this work still as relevant today as it was in 1915 when it was first exhibited.   Epstein’s […]

In the 1970s Ocean had been co-opted by his art tutor Ian Dury as a bass player with the band Kilburn and the High Roads; already in the rock music world, he then travelled as artist in residence on a Wings tour of America in 1976 and so knew his sitter well when he came […]

The title of this exhibition derives from ‘Recovered Territories’, the term used to describe the lands transferred from Germany to Poland at the end of the Second World War. This geographic upheaval led to huge shifts in people too, the German population being largely replaced by Poles who were themselves expellees as a result of […]

New Contemporaries is an annual exhibition selected from an open submission for current students of Fine Arts from art schools across the country. It provides an opportunity to view an emerging generation of new artists, each now embarking on the start of their career.   A distinguished panel, consisting of artists Michael Landy, Nigel Cooke, […]

Andrew Tift describes himself as a figurative realist painter who predominantly specialises in portraiture. His triptych ‘Kitty’ was the winner of the National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award 2006, gifted by The Art Fund, the UK’s leading independent art charity, to The New Art Gallery Walsall.   The model for the work was Kitty Godley, […]

In 1995 Suzanne Treister created the fictional alter ego Rosalind Brodsky, a delusional time traveller who believes herself to be working at the institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality (IMAT) in the twenty-first century. HEXEN 2039 charts Brodsky’s scientific research towards the development of new mind control technologies for the British Military through a […]

Cult Fiction explores the recipriocal relationship between comics and contemporary art. The language of comics has influenced many contemporary artists who adopt its conventions of pictoral narrative to communicate graphically with the viewer.   Attracted by the medium’s democratic format and its ability to reach and influence a wide public, many of the fine artists […]

These Star Portraits explore the nature of celebrity and our society’s continuing obsession with it.   In the famous words of Shakespeare ‘ Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them’ (Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 5). These portraits offer many different ways of portraying and looking at greatness […]

Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1935 and permanently settled in London since 1983, Paula Rego is a major figure in the world of international art. The monumentality and psychological drama of her paintings have established her as one of the most important figurative painters of our generation.   Her art works are in collections all […]

Fairy Tale looks at art that retells fairy stories, and art that is charged with the atmosphere of these tales. Fairy tales have never stopped evolving, and several artists in this show take stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, or Beauty and the Beast, or The Little Mermaid, and give them their own surprising […]

Collections are what museums are all about. They are the foundtions  upon which education and access are built and developed. They are intricate creations brought about through the passions and beliefs of dedicated individuals who can be both private collectors and public employees.   The private collections from ‘The Peoples Shows’ Walsall, Sculptor Jacob Epstein’s Collection in […]

Chance and random interference are essential elements of the creative process for the artists in You’ll Never Know, who use a bewildering variety of techniques to produce images and drawings. Like gamblers, they welcome the unpredictable, whether deploying drawing machines or primitive methods of mark-making incorporating accidental drips and splashes of ink, paint or mud. […]

In the corner of the gallery is a rickety shed, it’s rough, latex covered exterior contrasting with the beautifully crafted oak parquet floor inside.   As it’s title -Good Hiding- suggests, this mysterious structure could either be an ideal escape from the world or have rather more sinister purposes…   A major work by You’ll […]

In October 2005 Layla Curtis travelled to Antartica for a three month residency with the British Antarctic Survey.  This exhibition includes work produced as a result of that journey.    Another new work, Sky Drawing, focuses on vapour trails made by aeroplanes in the sky above the West Midlands, continuing Curtis’s investigation of travel, location […]

This exhibition explores Hyung-Geun Park’s exploration of landscape photography from 2003 to present. For Hyung-Geun, his practice is grounded in his notion that reality and perception are not the same and his photographic works are heavily inspired by his imagination.    For the Untitled series of 2003-4, he chose to photograph natural settings where the […]

Anna Barriball creates work in a variety of media that focuses on everyday objects and playfully explores relationships between sculpture and drawing.   Simple, ephermeral acts are combined with more labour-intensive and time-consuming techniques. her work reveals that poetic qualities can be found in the most inert and mundane of objects.     Image:Anna BarriballDraw […]

Kerry James Marshall’s first solo show in the UK presents collages, large scale paintings, drawings and prints from the 1970s to the present day.   Marshall draws upon a wide range of sources such as African-American history, literature, films, music and comic books, as welll as western art history and classical mythology to create what has […]

Folk Archive is an ongoing collection of contemporary folk and vernacular art from Britain and Ireland brough together by artists Alan Kane and 2004 Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller with curator Bruce Haines.   From Gunning to graffiti, tattoos to tapestries, customised cars to clairvoyants’ hand signs, this energetic and engaging collection is a real […]

Doppelgánger is a full colour, stereoscopic, dance-screen installation comprising four projections, directed and choreographed by Liz Aggiss and Billy Crowe.   Shot on location at The New Art Gallery Walsall, Aggiss is plaguedand plagiarised by invasive strangers who are hell-bent on picking on her and making her ordinary activities extra-ordinary.   Doppelgánger is made from […]

This major international exhibition explores the work and influence of black artists working in America, Britain and jamaica in the 1960’s and 70’s. It traces the cultural impact of the Black Arts Movement through the painting, sculpture, photography, graphics and film that emerged over the two decades.   Symbols such as the raised fist, Afro […]

This major solo exhibition brings together brand new works by the artist that typically combines his interest in sculpture and science, and demonstrates the intellectual rigour, technical dexterity and intense sense of drama associated with Shawcross’s work.   The new works draw upon quantum mechanics and musical theory, especially the science of harmonics. One of […]

This new work has been commisioned from four regional artists as part of an ongoing commitment to Capture which supports new collaborative work between dancers, choreographers and artists working with the moving image.   Exploring themes of pregnancy and identity, the installation takes the form of a large scale video projection with a number of […]

Hew Locke is well known for his large scale architectural constructions which draw upon diverse influences such as Baroque, Rococo, Hindu, Islamic and colonial architecture, along with fairground art.   He also creates vibrantly coloured collage sculptures, many of the royal family, made with materials such as plastic toys, artificial flowers, sequins and cake decorations. […]

Jim Bird was born in Bloxwich and grew up in Walsall, eventually leaving to pursue a career as an artist abroad. Whilst living in New York, he exhibited with artists such as Robert Motherwell and Kenneth Noland. He now lives in Majorca which has been his home for many years and wnere he is a […]

Capture will bring together three installations which have resulted frrom collaborations between moving image makers and dancers/choreographers. This is a completely new experience for Walsall visitors.   Infected by Gina Czarnecki and Iona Kewney is a haunting video installation about the nature of the physical body in the context of future technological possibilities, seen through […]

Farouq Molloy, Modasar Rasul, Salma Ravat and Muhammad Ali. Four Muslim artists from Walsall show diverse works of photography, calligraphy, graffiti, print and textile work.

From designs for palaces by medeival masters to futuristic film sets, Fantasy Architecture focuses on imagined buildings structures and schemes.   Featuring the work of visionaries as diverse as Ingo Jones, Joseph paxton, John Soane, Edwin Luytens, Buckminster Fuller, Zaha Hadid and Foreign Office Architects, the exhibition includes a wealth of historical and contemporary drawings […]

This major solo exhibition highlights Dryden Goodwin’s preoccupations with urban and natural landscapes, and with human perception and interaction. Encompassing large-scale video and sound installation, photography, drawing and film, it gives a first UK tsaging to a number of newly-completed works.   The centrepiece is Goodwin’s panoramic video and sound installation, Dilate (2003). Pulsing across […]

A project by artists Andy Hewitt & Mel Jordan in association with Creative Partnerships Black Country and The New Art Gallery Walsall. New art works by Barby Asante, Dave Beech, Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson, Simon Poulter, Becky Shaw.   Futurology: The Black Country 2024 is an art project in which artists and young people […]

The highly charged atmosphere of these meticulously posed paintings and prints from the Tate collection reveal an intense relationship between Lucian Freud and his wife Kitty Garman, the daughter of sculptor Jacob Epstein.   These early portraits of Kitty from 1947 to 1951 are shown next to his self portrait of that period and are […]

This unique exhibition will include paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, video and installations from artists and public and private collections in Britain and abroad. Major works are included by Francis Bacon, Per Barclay, Cecil Beaton, Bruce of LA, Jean Cocteau, Duncan Grant, Sunil Gupta, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, John Minton, Pavel Tchelitchev, Wolfgang Tillmans, Henry Scott […]

Recent artworks by Gavin Turk, Yoshihiro Suda and Rose Finn-Kelcey are shown amongst the Garman Ryan Collection offering new ways of looking at the themes of still life and work and leisure.   The works blend with the design and architecure of the New Art Gallery enhancing the visitor’s experience of the works by showing […]

An exhibition featuring major contemporary artists selected from the Arts Council Collection by Walsall students from Aldridge School, Joseph Leckie Community Technology College, Rushall Community College and Queen Mary’s High School.   Double Take explores the processes of looking from the initial impression to reflective observations, associations, meanings and changing interpretations.The young curators have been […]

This exhibition gathers together works from the Tate Collection by sixteen modern and contemporary artists whose practice involves observing or meeting strangers.   Ian Breakwell and Sophie Calle attempt to discover the reality of the lives of strangers they encounter in everyday life, and Gillian Wearing collaborates with anonymous members of the public to make […]

Come and see the actual portraits that were featured on the BBC One Series Star Portraits with Rolf Harris.   The series introduces the art of portraiture through the work of twelve contemporary artists who have been selected by Rolf Harris to create portraits of four famous people Meera Syal, David Dickinson, Charlie Dimmock and […]

The tangled web of family relationships, artists and models that lie behind the many portraits in the German Ryan Collection gets even more complex and more fascinating with the paintings and embroideries created by these three generations of women, Kitty Garman, Annie Freud, Annabel freud and May Cornet; daughter, granddaughters and great granddaughter of jacob […]

Andy Lewis combines a unique and imaginative investigation of the world with a clear passion for making and creating.   Trained originally as an architect, Andy’s sculptures verge on model-making and he uses a range of materials including cardboard and ceramics, employing the most intricate and intriguing attention to detail. Similarly his drawings usually created […]

Walsall artists present their latest works in the 54th annual exhibition.   Most of the paintings, drawings and sculptures exhibited are for sale, providing an excellent opportunity to purchase unique gifts.

During the construction of The New Art Gallery  Walsall, Birmingham-based photographer Ming de Nasty was commissioned to create a large series of photographs of many of the people involved in the building of the gallery, from plumbers to fitters and executives to architects.   These warm and compelling images bear witness to the range of […]

Dan Holdsworth has gained a reputation for photographs that focus on marginal spaces and urban eyesores such as shopping centres, car parks and motorway flyovers, areas were the constructed and natural worlds collide.   Often shot at night using long exposures, his compelling images evoke a sense of strangeness and beauty. Alongside works from Holdsworth’s […]

Jacob Epstein’s Rock Drill sculpture was an optimistic symbol of power and strength. In 1915 Rock Drill was realised as a ten foot sculpture with the robtic figure pearched high on a real rock drill. After the horror of the First World War Esptein discarded the drill and cast the torso in bronze. The sculpture […]

The fantasic interactive T(oy)ime Machine traveled back to Walsall after touring for six years. T(oy)ime Machine, made by Walsall born artist Darryl Georgiou and Maxwell Taylor, featured toys from past and present doing amazing things, mixing low and high tech on a computer embedded in a casing of recycled driftwood.

This exhibiton combines Kate’s recent distinctive landscape paintings with a new commission for a panaramic alpine scene completely surrounding the viewer. Kate’s use of acrylic paint with glitter or polystrene seems odd at first with the illusory nature of her work. At the heart of Kate’s painting is a love of the medium and a […]

An opportunity for artists who live and work in Walsall to show their work in the world class galleries. Selectors for 2003 were Peter Jenkinson, Gavin Turk and Natalie Missenden.

Walsall’s permanent art collections include a number of limited edition prints by artists from the 1960’s to 2000. Works by Anna maria Pacheco, Richard Hamilton, Patrick heron and Lucian Freud will be on display along size that of local artists such as Sue Krejzel and Dave Gunning.

Between the man-made and the natural. Curated by Rhonda Wilson of Seeing The Light.   Photography by Sian Bonnell, Barbara Downs, Deborah Jones, Thomas Kellner, Clare Smith and Frank Yamrus.   These artists work in the space between the man-made and the natural, often tampering with the built environment or nature’s elements to raise questions […]

A playful and challenging exhibiton curated by Rhonda Wilson and featuring new and recent photographic work by Sian Bonnell, Barbara Downs, Deborah Jones, Thomas Kellner, Claire Smith and Frank Yamrus.   A collaboration between Seeing the Light and The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Vail emamines one of the most powerful symbols in comtemporary culture. This was the first major exhibition to explore the position of the vail in today’s complex global order, endlessly repositioned by changing world events. This exhibition brings together the work of comtemporary artists from diverse backgrounds. The artsts featured are Faisal Abdu’Allah, Kourush Adim, […]

Eric Gill created many images on the theme of The Crucifixion. This carving and 21 woodcuts, loaned from Tate, were created between 1910-1927 and include the Fourteen Stations of the cross which he carved for Westminster Cathedral.   Tate.

Using seemimgly destructive techniques, Johnathan Callan transforms found objects into artworks that have a fragile beauty whilst testifying to the subtle violence used in their creation. By cutting, scratching, folding and punching holes in books and photographs, the artists emphasizes their physical properties as objects rather than the ‘second-hand’ information they contain. This process of […]

Walsall artists presented their latest artworks in their annual exhibition.

Thirty young people from Walsall and Sandwell worked with artists from Walk The Plank to create massive fire drawings inspired by Garrman Ryan artsworks. The drawings were burnt at the closing ceremony of Walsall Illuminations and together formed the largest ever collection of fire drawings.

This exhibition brought together twentieth century works from the Tate collections which deal with the process of growing older: with personal change and transition, with memory and reminiscence, with the development of muturity and self-knowledge. All the works are by women and reflect significant life experiances from a distinctively female perspective. Using diverse means of […]

This major sculpture by Jacob Esptein of a pregnant woman was on loan to the gallery through the Tate Partnership Scheme. At the time of its creation in 1926, Kathleen Garman was pregnant with Epstein’s daughter and themes of fertility and sexuality are woven into the figure.   Supported by th Hertiage Lottery Fund. Tate.

Using painting, prints and drawings from the gallery’s collections, Rural Walsall aims to challenge the popular perception of the Borough as an industrial area with a long history of factories and pollution. The show comtemplates the destruction of Walsall’s medieval oak forests and questions the nature of ‘rural tranquillity’ through twentieth century artists’ visions of […]

Gavin Turk’s sculpture is characterised by an irreverent plundering of the history of art, popular culture and current affairs to create witty and provocative works that explore and challange notions of authenticity, orginality, identity and value.   Copper Jubliee is Gavin Turk’s first major British solo show since 1998. New works included Nomad, a beautifully […]

Pupils from three special schools in Walsall Mary Elliot, Jane Lane and Castle School have used the landscape pictures in the Garman Ryan Collection as a source of inspiration. The children’s work offers a unique inslight into the pictures in the Collection and reveals the impressive creative talents and imagination of the young artists.

Lygia Pape, Artur Barrio, Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, Feranda Gomes, Ricardo Basbaum, Rivane Neuenschwander, Tatiane Grinberg and Jose Damasceno.   Vivencias set up conversations between a select number of Brazil’s most energetic and significant artists, working between the 1960’s and the present. From different generations and distinguished by varying aims and practices, they are linked […]

Jigar featured three evocative and poetic films by Alia Syed, bringing together a significant body of work made over the last fifteen years. In Spoken Diary, a woman travels through a rainy London night, the city reflecting her emotional state as she documents her thoughts. Accompained by a poetic voiceover and tabla soundtrack, Spoken Diary […]

The Garman Ryan Collection is the sourse of inspiration for this exhibition of work by special needs pupils from Walsall’s Castle School. Using many different mediums and following ideas put forward in the National Curriculum, the student’s work offers the opportunity to see what an exciting and stimulating resourse the collection can be for children.

Walsall artists exhibited their latest works in their annual exhibtion.

This was the first chance to see new additions to Walsall’s permanent collection, this included gifts from the Contemporary Art Society and the Saatchi Collection. The exhibition featered works in a range of media by artists including Jordon Baseman, Layla Curtis, Philip King, Marysia Lewandowska, Ian McLean, Henery Moore, Marcus Taylor and Richard Wentworth.

Canadian artist Janet Cardiff’s work combined sound, movement and the surrounding environment. Forty Part Motet was a new audio work co-commissioned by The New Art Gallery Walsall, based on a renaissance choral music Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis (1514-1585.) Forty separately recored voices were played through forty speakers which were strategically placed throughout the […]

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s drawings highlight the artist’s fascination with animals and were made in his most creative period, 1912-1913. The show brings together some fifteen animal drawings demonstrating Gaudier-Brzeska’s remarkable ability to distil the essence of each animal into his work through an economical use of line.   The drawings were on loan from Tate through […]

Magentic North brings together five Finnish artists working with large scale coloured photography. Elina Brotherus draws on her own experiances to create seductive yet disturbing images, while Marjaana Kella engages with traditions of photographic portraiture. Ola Kolehmainen’s elegant architectural images capture details of Jean Nouvel’s Institul du Monde Arabe. Andrej Lajunen’s photographs reflect the rhythms […]

Walsall born artist Darren Lago showed his first major solo show in a public gallery. Darren draws his inspiration from familiar objects, such as trainers, egg whisks, watering cans and garden spades. Using a lively imagination, tremendous techical skill and a sense of humour, he transforms these objects into engaging and challenging sculptures. New works […]

An exhibiton of new and exciting work by Estelle Thompson. Estelle’s captivating abstract paintings are informed by a tradition of art of optical illusion exemplifted by the art of Bridget Riley. She is also inspired by the music that she listens to in her studio. Estelle skilfully fuses bands of colour which appear to exist […]

Internationally renowned photographer Sebastiao Salgado undertook an epic project to document massive migration throughout the world. Photographs have been taken in over 35 countries. Salgado recorded some of the hundreds of millions of people, who, in an elemental struggle for survival, have broken thier ties with land and tradition in a flight towards other destinies. […]

This temporary display focued on Epstein’s sculpture ‘Doves-third version’ 1914-1915. This master-piece from the most inventive period of the artist’s career is on loan from the Tate through the Tate Partership Scheme-an inititive designed to increase public access to the Tate Collection through a series of loans and exhibitions. The New Art Gallery Walsall was […]

This lively and interactive exhibition was curated by Greg Votolato, seeks to challenge the myth of craft-free modern buildings. A range of artists, craftspeople, designers and architects form across the world contributed to the exhibition. Some of the processes explored included building with straw, bamboo, concrete and glass. Also included was a giant nest constructed […]

An opportuntity to show some of our local artistic talent. Applicatants were invited from anyone living or working in the Borough of Walsall. The exhibition was selected by artist Andrew Tift, TV presenter Nina Nannar and Express & Star journalist Paul Hinton.

An exhibition exploring ways in which comtemporary artists have explored and interpreted the idea of memorials, monuments and mementoes. New work was commissioned from Jananne Al-Ani, Echolalia, Darryl Joe, Georgiou, Kenny Hunter, Alastair Maclennan and Gavin Turk. Also featured were Nick Crowe, Susan Hiller, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Andrew Tift. Works were represented in a wide […]

Artist Catherine Yass was commissined to create a major new body of work during the development and construction of the New Art Gallery Walsall. She chose to focus on the hidden people and places of Walsall as the content of the new work and spent a substantial amount of time in Walsall visiting a wide […]

This was an opportunity to celebrate the wealth of artistic talent in Walsall as Walsall Society of Artists held their annual exhibiton. A range of work was on display including portraits (of humans and animals,) landscapes, still lives, flower studies and three dimensional works. Visitors also had the oppertunity to try out their own creative […]

This exhibiton brought together a range of around 70 sculptures spanning almost two thousand years. Much of the work was sacred in purpose, embodying religious beliefs and philosophical ideals, but it was also deeply sensual, celebrating the human body in all its astonishing variety. The exhibition included work in stone, bronze, terracotta, marble, ivory and […]

Ranbir Kauris a textile and rangoli artist who has developed an international profile through her work with communities across the world. At the beginning of the year 2000 she worked with Heather Steele to contruct a 9 metre rangoli for the project ‘Revolution’ at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre. Ranbir works with a wide variety of […]

Heather Steele has lived and worked in the countryside for most of her life and has always been acutely aware of the changing seasons and the cycles of creation, destruction and regeneration. Her sculptures, installations, and ground drawings are often made form organic materials collected from the farm, the local countryside, woodlands and gardens, both […]

The intriguing exhibition included works from a wide range of media by comtemporary artists exploring aesthetic and social worlds of girls aged between about three and nine years old. Each of the artists looks back to an age when girls have an autonomy and freedom that is rapidly lost as the demands of adult sexuality […]

This opening exhibition was a celebratory exploration of modern and comptemporary art with an emphasis on the use of the colour blue. Loans were negotiated with major public collections from Britain and aboard and new work was commissioned from Andrew Gifford, Keith Khan and Ali Zaidi (moti roti) and Meriele Neudecker. Other artists included Josef […]

Artists include Frank Bowling, Tiffany Chung, Agnes Denes, Tania Kovats and Cornelia Parker Maps have continued to provide a potent source material for artists for many years. They provide attempts to make sense of a world that is ever in transformation, whether in terms of physical manifestations such as valleys, rivers and canyons; or blurred […]

Throughout 2016 we will display some of the newest acquisitions to our Permanent Collection, in the lead up to its 125th anniversary next year. Our collecting policy prioritises works which have an association with our Garman Ryan Collection, or are by artists who have been part of our temporary exhibitions programmes or held residencies at […]

Ruth Claxton is known for her large-scale, site responsive architectural installations, which often utilise materials that are ‘activated’ by a viewer’s physical presence. She will use her residency to experiment with retro-reflective pigment, a distinctly contemporary material most commonly used in cycling jackets to illuminate the wearer in a headlamp’s beam.   Following a period […]