The ceramic surprise in Swindon

摘要

The town of Swindon in Wiltshire is seldom thought of in terms of the arts. Yet there is a thriving art scene, much of which is centred on the local Museum and Art Gallery. This began life simply as Swindon Museum in 1919, when local businessman Charles Herbert Henry Gore offered his collection of antiquities and fossils to Swindon Council. In 1930 the museum relocated to its present home, Apsley House in Bath Road. At that time there was no public art venue in Swindon and, in 1938, the artist Lord Methuen launched a campaign to establish such a gallery. However, it was not until 1946 when another businessman, H.J.P. Bomford, presented the council with 21 works of art - including paintings by L.S. Lowry, Henry Moore, Lawrence Gowing and Paul Nash - that Swindon began to seriously consider the idea of having its own gallery.