Compton Verney
Compton Verney
Warwick
West Midlands
CV35 9HZ
England
Website
Main site
Online shop
Memories of Compton Verney
www.memoriesofcomptonverney.org.uk
General enquiries
Telephone
Tickets & General enquiries
01926 645500
Fax
General fax
01926 645501
Visitors of all ages are warmly welcomed to this award-winning art gallery. Housed in a grade I listed Robert Adam mansion and surrounded by stunning 'Capability' Brown landscaped parkland, Compton Verney offers a great day out.
Be enthralled by our programme of exhibitions,explore art from around the world and stroll along our woodland walk. All this alongside an exciting events programme, including fun family activities, adult workshops, tours, lectures and talks.
This museum has a Designated Collection of national importance.
Venue Type:
Gallery, Garden, parklands or rural site
Additional info
Assistance dogs welcome
Compton Verney
Warwick
West Midlands
CV35 9HZ
England
Website
Main site
Online shop
Memories of Compton Verney
www.memoriesofcomptonverney.org.uk
General enquiries
Telephone
Tickets & General enquiries
01926 645500
Fax
General fax
01926 645501
The collection of Archaic Chinese bronzes at Compton Verney is a Designated Collection of national importance.
The 79 Archaic Chinese bronzes from the Shang, Zhou and Han Dynasties (1500-206 BC), with additional, later, bronze-shaped objects made from ceramic and cloisonné, make up an important collection. These objects, associated with ancestor worship, are the chief testimony to the earliest artistic and technological achievements of the Chinese. The earliest pottery vessel in the collection dates back to the Neolithic period (4500-2000 BC).
Compton Verney is also home to a growing collection of nationally and internationally significant art from around the world. The collections include paintings from Naples (1600-1800), Northern European, British Portraits, Chinese, British Folk Art and the Marx Lambert Collection.
Collection details
Fine Art, Film and Media, Design, Decorative and Applied Art
Key artists and exhibits
- Gaspare Vanvitelli
- Vesuvius
- Sir William Hamilton
- Volaire
- Giuseppe Bonito
- Paolo Popora
- Tilman Riemenschneider
- Lucas Cranach
- Sir Joshua Reynolds
- Henry VIII
- Enid Marx
- Margaret Lambert
- Shang period
- Zhou
- Tang dynasty
- Ming dynasty
- Designated Collection
Collections services
- General guide to collections available
- Specialist publications on collections available
Compton Verney
Warwick
West Midlands
CV35 9HZ
England
Website
Main site
Online shop
Memories of Compton Verney
www.memoriesofcomptonverney.org.uk
General enquiries
Telephone
Tickets & General enquiries
01926 645500
Fax
General fax
01926 645501
Gainsborough's Landscapes: Themes and variations
This is the first exhibition in fifty years solely devoted to Gainsborough’s landscapes. It brings together a wonderful group of paintings and drawings from public and private collections spanning his whole career. For Gainsborough, painting portraits was his business and painting landscapes was his pleasure.
“I am sick of portraits and wish very much to …walk off to some sweet village where I can paint land skips and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease.” Thomas Gainsborough
Works of the imagination as much as observation they reveal, more than any other works, the mind of the great artist at work and play.
The exhibition brings together some of Gainsborough’s finest landscape oils and works on paper and examines them not through a chronological survey but by exploring certain ‘themes and variations’ looking at landscapes that he returned to again and again throughout his career.
Although Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) sold relatively few of his landscape paintings he regarded them as his most important work. When not occupied with his lucrative portrait business the artist devoted much of his time to the creation of landscapes ‘of his own Brain’ (as he termed them). The English countryside, its forms, textures and colours, and the people and animals that lived and worked in it, inspired a lifetime’s work in many media, from oils to etching.
The development of his style can clearly be traced from his early naturalistic landscapes made in Suffolk in the Dutch manner and enlivened by small figures, to grandiose scenery with dramatic lighting, or in which rustic figures often take centre stage. However, there were many ideas that he returned to throughout his career, and the exhibition shows how certain motifs recur in his landscape work, in a
variety of media and styles, gradually coming together in the creation of larger, more dominant compositions.
The art works have been chosen by the curator to represent six principal landscape types, and these themes are explored through a combination of oils, drawings and prints, many not previously exhibited, that show how the artist developed and orchestrated them.
Exhibition organised by the Holburne Museum and is accompanied by an illustrated book, written by Susan Sloman and published by Philip Wilson Publishers.
Suitable for
- Any age
Where
Compton Verney
Website
Into the Light: French and British painting from Impressionism to the early 1920s
This exhibition surveys the production of paintings on both sides of the Channel during this decisive period in the history of European art, revealing connections and allowing a comparison of the artists' work. It will offer a rare opportunity to connsider whether British artists were merely following French innovations or were producing work that was more suited to contemporary British interests and values.
The exhibition comprises 54 paintings and drawings from major galleries throughout the UK including works by Vanessa Bell, Eugene Boudin, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Walter Sickert, Alfred Sisley, Alexander Stanhope Forbes and Philip Wilson Steer.
Into the Light illustrates some of the major trends in the practice of painting over this 50 year period. One of the most significant was artists' investigations into the representation of light. New developments in the materials and implements the artist used and the way they could transport them allowed them to develop new approaches and techniques. As this exhibition shows, the result offered a more spontaneous response to place and stunning depictions of the shifting of light over the landscape which often challenged academic standards.
This exhibition is organised by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter.
Suitable for
- Any age
Where
Compton Verney
Website
Compton Verney
Warwick
West Midlands
CV35 9HZ
England
Website
Main site
Online shop
Memories of Compton Verney
www.memoriesofcomptonverney.org.uk
General enquiries
Telephone
Tickets & General enquiries
01926 645500
Fax
General fax
01926 645501
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