Newport Museum - Art Gallery

Art Gallery

As well as a museum, the building is home to Newport's principal art gallery. The gallery hosts a wide variety of British paintings, watercolours and contemporary artworks. The largest collection is known as the John & Elizabeth Wait Collection.

The bronze head of Newport born poet W.H. Davies by Jacob Epstein, from January 1917, can be found in the gallery. It is regarded by many as the most accurate artistic impression of Davies, a copy of which Davies owned himself.

Past exhibitions at the gallery have attracted controversy. In 2008 a painting of a naked woman smoking was removed from display after a complaint from a bishop. When it was put back, 20,000 people queued to see it. In October 2011 the council apologised for The Institute of Mental Health is Burning exhibition, where explicit sex scenes were put on display (and published in a free supplement) without any warning notices.

In 2013 the temporary exhibitions programme was threatened with closure after Arts Council funding was withdrawn. Welsh actor Michael Sheen spoke out against the closure threat. The post of Visual Arts Officer was to be scrapped (after more than 25 years) and the temporary shows replaced with a static exhibition from the permanent art collection.

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