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.

You can explore our collections more by searching our online catalogue.