Visual Arts

The Visual Arts Collection consists of approximately 5200 items. These include paintings, drawings, prints, textiles, sculptures, ceramics, and works in new media. Many of these are topographical views. The original policy of the gallery in 1957 was to collect mainly British Life and Landscape art. A number of major works have also been collected in the areas of British watercolours, British twentieth century painting and British figure drawing.

Eastern European and Far Eastern works were acquired from 1959. The original policy was altered in 1963 when abstract art first began to be collected.

Projected displays for 2007:

Some of the most important early paintings in the Herbert will be on show in a new gallery devoted to showing great art.

The masterpiece of the later Italian painter Luca Giordano, measuring no less than 5.8 metres long, will be the centrepiece. It shows the Greek god Bacchus and all his revellers coming across the beautiful Ariadne who has become stranded on a Mediterranean island.

Another major painting is the original, official, portrait of King George III which was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, president of the Royal Academy. Painted over 200 years ago it is as fresh as when it was new. From close up the artist's amazing virtuoso handling of paint to represent lace or velvet can be seen. From this distance it is truly a great abstract painting too.

Protected in a micro-environment, our Renaissance portrait, long believed to show Mary Queen of Scots, is now believed to show the wife of Queen Elizabeth the First's High Admiral. She may be flaunting jewels stolen from the Spanish! Most remarkable though is the quality of the portrait, which has now been attributed to Lucas d'Heere.

Other paintings include Zoffany's 'The Porter and the Hare', and early English and continental landscapes.

A new sculpture gallery will show something of the richness of our sculptural heritage. Displays will include:

Minimal Art, Land Art and The Art of Anxiety by celebrated local sculptor Tim Threlfall.

Social Realist masterpiece 'The Coventry Sculpture' by Hungarian Peter Laszlo Peri. This was constructed as an installation in the gallery as the centrepiece of the 'British Life and Landscape' collection when the gallery opened in 1960.

British sculpture of the 20th century, including Barbara Hepworth's large bronze 'Figure (Walnut)'.

French and German 'Animalier' bronzes showing fights between animals. Is there such a thing as 'good taste'?

Another controversial exhibit will be an early modern stone sculpture which some claim to be a crucial early work by Jacob Epstein. Was this piece really the inspiration for his later radical pagan temple pieces?

This new gallery will show great art but also look at the underlying issues.

The first display may look at the thorny but perennial issue of who decides what is good art and indeed what is art at all.

One piece up for discussion is a five metre long storyteller's scroll from Bengal, India. The original purpose of this was to celebrate and appease the snake goddess Manasa.

Alongside this for consideration as art is a superb Victorian copy of a famous Botticelli. The original purpose of the Botticelli was to celebrate the Virgin Mary.

Highlights of the collection include:

• Graham Sutherland's studies for the Coventry Cathedral tapestry and the tapestry trial piece
• 'Bacchus and Ariadne' by Luca Giordano
• Portraits of George Eliot and King George III
• Storytellers' Scrolls from Bengal
• 540 views of Coventry by Sydney Bunney
• 3 works by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Our collections also contain 20th Century art and sculpture, British painting before 1900, British watercolours, British figure drawings, British prints, British ceramics, the Design collections, European painting, topographical views of Coventry and Warwickshire, the David Gee collection, World arts, Coventry Cathedral collection, Portraits and the Godiva collection.

Ron Clarke
Keeper Visual Arts
ron.clarke@coventry.gov.uk
Tel: 024 7629 4732

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