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  Museum location inNewport, Wales | |
| Established | 1888 |
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| Location | Newport, Wales |
| Coordinates | 51°35′09″N2°59′37″W / 51.5858°N 2.9935°W /51.5858; -2.9935 |
| Type | Local history and art |
| Website | http://www.newport.gov.uk/heritage/Museum--Art-Gallery/Museum-Art-Gallery.aspx |
Newport Museum and Art Gallery (Welsh:Amgueddfa ac Oriel Gelf Casnewydd) (known locally as theCity Museum (Welsh:Amgueddfa Dinas)) is a museum, library andart gallery in the city ofNewport, South Wales. It is located inNewport city centre onJohn Frost Square and is adjoined to theKingsway Shopping Centre.
Newport Museum opened in 1888 in Dock Street and moved to its current purpose-built building in 1968.[1] The collections include Archaeology, Social History, Art and Natural History. The most ancient artefacts in the museum are tools made by hunter-gatherers who walked the shores of the Severn estuary hundreds of thousands of years ago. The Roman collections rank amongst the best in Wales, comprising material excavated from the Roman town ofCaerwent and the fortress atCaerleon. The Medieval and later collections feature finds from local castles and priories, including an outstanding assemblage fromPenhow Castle.
The most significant items of Social History are theChartist collection of weapons, broadsheets, prints and silver from the 1839 Chartist uprising in Newport and the Transporter Bridge archive, which includes all of the original designs for the bridge and photographs of its construction.
The Fine Arts collections includes paintings by SirStanley Spencer, DameLaura Knight andL S Lowry, and Welsh artists such asKyffin Williams,Ceri Richards andStanley Lewis. The Decorative Art collections feature the John Wait teapot collection and the Iris Fox collection of porcelain andWemyss ware and sculpture by SirJacob Epstein and studio ceramics byLucy Rie andEwen Henderson.[2]
As well as a museum, the building is home to Newport's principalart gallery. The gallery hosts a wide variety of British paintings,watercolours andcontemporary artworks. The largest collection is known as the John & Elizabeth Wait Collection.
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.[3] In October 2011 the council apologised forThe 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.[3]
In 2013 the temporary exhibitions programme was threatened with closure afterArts Council funding was withdrawn. Welsh actorMichael Sheen spoke out against the closure threat.[4] 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.[5]
Possibly the final temporary exhibition,Shift, by Welsh artistDavid Garner was launched in April 2013 following a public demonstration against the proposed closure. Garner created a special artwork,A Case of the Great Money Trick, which was inspired by the campaign to keep the gallery open.[6][7] The temporary exhibition programme closed after the conclusion ofShift.
The museum building is also home to the city's public Central Library. It has a large collection of books and articles and is the headquarters of Newport's library network which includes Maindee and Caerleon libraries.
In March 2012 it was reported that theChartist Mural by Kenneth Budd in John Frost Square was to be recreated in Newport Central Library as part of the redevelopment of the area.[8] The mural was demolished in 2013 and discussion on a replacement memorial is ongoing.
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