ART IN CONTEXT

27 June - 9 August 1992
Wolsey Art Gallery

A Selection by Graham Reynolds from the Ipswich Borough Council Museums & Galleries Collection. Graham Reynolds was Keeper of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London from 1959 to 1974. He has written about a wide range of art from Elizabethan miniatures to modern prints. Revised editions of his standard books on English Portrait Miniatures, Victorian Painting and English Watercolours were published recent to this exhibition.

Paintings have been collected by the Ipswich Borough Council Museums for the people of Suffolk since 1896 when Christchurch Mansion opened as a public museum and picture gallery. In 1909 Felix Thornley Cobbold bequeathed a trust fund to finance the purchase of works of art for the house. This act of farsighted generosity enabled the Museum to buy pictures by Suffolk and other artists throughout the twentieth century, as additional Borough purchase funds were not granted until 1966. Many local and national funding organisations have financially supported acquisitions over the years and works of art have also been acquired through gifts and bequests from local people and these continue to be accepted.

Graham Reynolds' s perceptive selection of works from the Ipswich collection highlighted its many strengths and rich variations. This exhibition aimed to provide a thematic guide to this limitless resource through the eyes of one of England's great art historians.


Click here for information about the accompanying catalogue