Museum and Art Swindon opened 9th of July 2024

 Museum and Art Swindon, the former Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, officially opened its doors today at 10.30am. This is great news for all who have missed being able to visit the museum and gallery over the last 4 years. There was a preview yesterday and I was privileged to be able to look round, although I must say I was so excited, I didn't really take much in. The new museum and gallery are now situated on the first floor of the Civic Offices in Euclid St; the conversion is really good, and the space and general ambience of the site is perfect. This is what the Adver said about the opening last Friday: Swindon's museum and art gallery to open in new location | Swindon Advertiser

I didn't take many photos, this one taken before the ribbon cutting was taken by Friends committee member Martin Newman, thank you Martin. Back row, Frances Yeo, Museums Manager, Cllr Jim Robbins, Leader of the Council then front row, right to left, Cllr Strinkovsky , the Mayor, Cllr Imtiyaz Shaikh and me: 

I looked on social media and found Wessex Museums had taken some excellent photos, these are courtesy of them; I hope they don't mind my sharing them:

Above a view of the shop with the Origins exhibition which looks at the history of MAS from 1912 until the present day.

The Elisabeth Frink exhibition is a highlight, a travelling exhibition made possible by Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation funding through the Wessex Museums. Above ;The Risen Christ' Maquette and on the right, 'Green Man' part of the Swindon Collection.

Above and below different views of the Frink exhibition. We are holding a Friends' talk by Wilfrid Wright on Elisabeth Frink on 25 July after a celebration of the opening.

It's quite interesting that Swindon had an Elisabeth Frink sculpture outside WH Smith. It was a running man and was sold about 20 years ago. Money raised reputedly paid for new signage.

I also included a photo of the ceramics and jewellery cabinet, there's lots of fabulous stuff to buy in the shop with a high standard of displays both with things to buy and also with the other displays. 

There are quite a few talks and tours, so check out the What's On section of the website.

Great to have Museum and Art Swindon open after 4 years and looking forward to seeing more of the Swindon Collection of Twentieth Century Art on display soon.

Top Ten Blog Posts of 2019

One of the delights of writing a blog is looking at the number of page views attained per post. It's hard to judge which posts will attract the most page views. It isn't necessarily a post which takes a long time to write, or one with the best photographs. I thought it might be interesting to review the posts from 2019 and give links to the top 10 posts, so here we go, please click on the titles to see the posts:

1. Talks and Trips for 2019 , 2 January with 430 page views



2. Latest Plans for Swindon MAG , 24 March with 212 page views



3. Private View of the New Exhibitions in the Gallery, 4 April, 207 page views



4. A Traveller in Space and Time: Michael Ayrton, Talk 3 November, 187 page views



5. Lunchtime Talk about the Group 7 exhibition ,26 August, 178 pages views



6.The Open Exhibition 2019, 7 December, 177 page views



7. Ken White's Private View, 17 October 177 page views



8. Ceramics Lunchtime Talk, 17 February, 173 page views



9. Gifted! A new exhibition in the main gallery, 17 January, 153 page views



10. Lunchtime Talk on Artist and Model Exhibition, 4 April, 148 page views



Well that's the top 10, interesting how often the lunchtime talks featured in there.
It's also great to look back on 2019 at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.