New Gallery being created at Wiltshire Museum
Posted by Philippa Morgan on 6 July 2017
The Wiltshire Museum is creating a new Special Exhibition gallery that will be suitable to take exhibitions from National Museums. The new gallery will open in November this year and will be the only UK venue for the international tour of 'Winds of War' exhibition – an exhibition of US WWI propaganda posters and prints from the San Antonio Public Library which is on a two year tour of Europe.
The new Special Exhibition Gallery will be alongside the current Art Gallery in the space that is currently the Recent History Gallery. Full height boards will be installed so that art work can be easily hung, new lighting will be installed and new high security cases will be ordered. The new space will meet the requirements of the Government Indemnity Scheme which means that the Museum can borrow objects from National Museums, including the British Museum. The new funding as an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation will allow the Museum to employ an Exhibitions Officer to develop an exciting programme and they will be working with their Wessex Museums Partners to bring high quality special exhibitions to the Devizes. The work of creating the Gallery is being funded by the Ready to Borrow Scheme, run by the South West Museum Development Programme and the Arts Council and by a donation in memory of Richard Oexmann.
The work will begin this month with the cleaning and packing of collections from the current Recent History Gallery. This provides an opportunity over the summer for visitors to talk to the team undertaking the work and to see some of the objects close-up as they are moved. Many of the objects will now feature in the Story of Devizes galleries, including old favourites such as items from the schoolroom, the Slopers sign and the Cunnington telephone.
Read more here http://www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/news/