Fine Art galleries
The collection dates back to 1851, a year after Brighton Corporation took control of the Royal Pavilion. An annual exhibition was organised, the proceeds of which helped assemble a permanent collection. After temporary residence within the Royal Pavilion, a new Museum and Art Gallery was opened on Church Street in 1873, featuring one of the earliest purpose-built municipal picture galleries in the country. In 1903, further exhibition galleries were opened.
New paintings were either purchased or donated in a series of generous bequests. One such was Henry Willett’s gift in 1903 of nearly 60 pictures. Among its treasures was The Raising of Lazarus by Jan Lievens, which had once hung in the home of Rembrandt. Another bequest was that of Paul Heyer, Brighton resident turned New York architect who, in 1997, left eleven major works of 20th century American art in his will. In the same year, the collection was integrated with that of Hove Museum & Art Gallery, which had acquired a significant collection by artists of the Camden Town School and paintings by the likes of Hilda Carline, Duncan Grant and Gilbert Spencer.
The galleries
At Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, three spaces are dedicated to displaying works from the fine art collection. The Prints & Drawings gallery houses displays which are changed every six months or so. The Paintings gallery is changed every two years. The Heyer gallery houses the Heyer Bequest and the 20th Century gallery displays a mixed collection of representational pictures which complement the decorative art on display.
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