Alun Ffred Jones AM, Minister for Heritage, is to visit Chepstow Museum’s new gallery on August 5th to view the exhibition “The Wye Tour and its Artists” and discuss the importance of the project. He will be welcomed by the Chairman of Monmouthshire County Council, Councillor Peter Clarke.
The exhibition and the gallery, created to enable the museum to borrow from national collections, have been funded by the Welsh Assembly Government’s Cyfoeth Cymru Gyfan Sharing Treasures scheme. This is administered by CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, and has enabled the museum to work in partnership with Angueddfa Cyrmu – National Museum Wales. With the National Museum’s advice and support Chepstow Museum has upgraded its facilities to allow it to borrow and display objects from national collections in Wales and England, giving access to the nation’s great treasures.
This first exhibition, including work by JMW Turner and many of the other great artists from the great age of British watercolours, clearly demonstrates how the gallery enhances the museum. Guest curator Julian Mitchell, best known as a playwright and screenplay writer and whose home is in Monmouthshire, has selected his ‘best and most interesting’ watercolours of the Lower Wye Valley.
Anne Rainsbury, the curator of Chepstow Museum said; “It’s very exciting to bring together these wonderful pictures, and return them to the source of their inspiration. I hope that visitors will find it equally exciting to enjoy looking at the paintings and then to see the sites and scenery for themselves.”
