the place – Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum is an important public facility within the town of Cheltenham and within the region of the Cotswolds. The Art Gallery & Museum has a central location in the town and holds some outstanding collections. These include the Arts & Crafts Movement Collection, which has designated status (awarded by the government in 1998 in recognition of the collections outstanding importance); extensive collections reflecting Cheltenham’s role as England’s most complete Regency town, the county / region’s history (pre-historic to 21st Century) and a significant art collection. The service also runs extensive education, outreach, lifelong learning and arts development programmes. In December 2005, the Art Gallery & Museum became one of the first museums in the South-West region to obtain fully accredited status under the Museums Libraries & Archives Council’s Accreditation Scheme for Museums.
The Art Gallery & Museum celebrates its centenary in 2007 (of the formal opening of the Museum in 1907). The year is a time to look back on past achievements, distant and more recent, and to look forward to the opportunity of giving the Art Gallery & Museum and its collections the home they deserve.
The subject of a fit and proper home for the Art Gallery & Museum has pre-occupied staff since at least 1937, when it was suggested that a new purpose-built gallery should be part of the re-development of the Winter Gardens / Imperial Gardens site (adjacent to the current Cheltenham Town Hall). More recent efforts to provide a home of the highest standard for the town’s magnificent collections, have, despite huge efforts by staff, Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and others, sadly foundered.
In 2005, Cheltenham Borough Council appointed a specialist arts advisory company, David Pratley Associates, to undertake a strategic review of culture in Cheltenham. The review was guided by an extensive consultative group, including Arts Council England, South West. The final report was approved by the Council in March 2006. With reference to the Art Gallery & Museum, it endorsed outline proposals for a new development to provide larger, temporary exhibition spaces and general improvements for enhanced visitor facilities and access.
We now have a combination of factors which makes 2007 the year to push forward with an achievable development, which will transform the Art Gallery & Museum and its work.
The development scheme addresses long-standing issues arising from the Art Gallery & Museum’s current premises, which significantly hamper its outreach and interpretive activities. The new facilities – large, flexible temporary display galleries, better public circulation and access within the galleries, improved storage conditions, greater public access to the study collections and more space for education / outreach - will enable the collections to be more accessible to the widest possible audiences, building on the Art Gallery & Museum’s existing local, regional, national and international strengths.
It will need to meet the highest possible standards in terms of display facilities (as part of our aspirations to be a major venue for national and international touring exhibitions) and environmental soundness – by incorporating the 1989 extension and remaining within the site’s existing ‘footprint’ – as well as in terms of using construction from natural and reclaimed materials, together with a combination of on-site and off-site sustainable energy sources. This also links into the ethos of the Arts & Crafts Movement, through its social and moral beliefs in the rejection of materialism and the encouragement of individuals to take responsibility for the environment.
The re-development scheme must enhance the setting of Cheltenham’s oldest building – the grade 1 listed St Mary’s Church - by providing a new building of good quality, which adds architectural variety to the surrounding conservation, establishing a basis for public realm improvements on Clarence Street.