Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery is the main museum and exhibition space in Kirkcaldy in Fife, Scotland.
The land for the town's museum and art gallery was donated by John Nairn (the grandson of the linoleum manufacturer, Michael Nairn) on the former site of Balsusney House, the home of John Maxton. This was opened in 1925, with the first chairman of trustee's local cloth-manufacturer businessman John Blyth, the maternal grandfather of politician Michael Portillo.
The art gallery holds the largest collection of paintings by William McTaggart and Scottish Colourist Samuel Peploe aside from the National Galleries of Scotland. The museum also contains many significant works by the Glasgow Boys. Situated on the ground floor, is the museum's award-winning permanent exhibition covering the town's industrial heritage. The museum also has a cafe which hosts some Wemyss Ware pottery, made in the town from around 1890s to 1930s.
In 2012 Fife Council closed the museum and gallery to allow a £2.5m refurbishment. It is to reopen in spring 2013.
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—Hawaiian saying no. 2740, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters.... We have infected the pictures in museums with all our stupidities, all our mistakes, all our poverty of spirit. We have turned them into petty and ridiculous things.”
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“Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring, for the old upon the walls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)