Lincoln Museum, formerly The Collection, is the county museum and gallery for Lincolnshire in England. It is an amalgamation of the Usher Gallery and the City and County Museum. The museum part of the enterprise is housed in a new, purpose-built building close by the Usher Gallery in the city of Lincoln. The name "The Collection" was in use from 2005; it was renamed "Lincoln Museum and Usher Gallery" in 2023. [1]
Lincoln Museum has existed since 2005. It is a merger between the Usher Gallery, which was established in 1927, and the City and County Museum, which was founded in 1906. The first curator of the Lincoln City and County Museum was Arthur Smith (1869–1947), who was born in Leicester and raised in Grimsby, and who was interested in natural history. [2] After being appointed curator, he moved to Lincoln. He became the (honorary) secretary of the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union (LNU) and acquired important collections, for example from J. E. Mason ( Heteroptera, bugs), W. Wallace ( Diptera, flies) and G. W. Mason ( Lepidoptera , butterflies). [3] The museum also acquired important collections of bird specimens, for instance from George Henry Caton Haigh. [4]
Smith retired as curator in 1935. He moved away from Lincoln and died in 1947. [5]
Lincoln consists of two parts, that at the top of the cliff and that in the Witham valley. The site of the museum is on the steep slope between the two and within the Roman colonia which linked the 1st-century legionary fortress with the shipping and commerce in the river.
The Usher Gallery was built to house the collection of James Ward Usher, using funds he bequeathed for the purpose. It was designed by the architect Sir Reginald Blomfield and was officially opened on 25 May 1927 by the Prince of Wales. It is a simple building faced in stone with brick panels separated by simplified Tuscan pilasters, above which is a frieze decorated with triglyphs and a roofline finished with a balustrade. The portico, central in the south façade, is topped by a broken pediment and urn finials. The gallery stands in a small park on the hillside looking southwards across the lower town. [6]
The Usher Gallery is the only purpose-built public art gallery in Lincolnshire. [7] and a Grade II* listed building. [8] [9] The Usher is owned by Lincoln City Council but is leased to Lincolnshire County Council. [10]
Following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions, Panter Hudspith Architects, led by Simon Hudspith, designed the new building. It was opened in October 2005 after much work, which included an archaeological excavation. Despite the building having been designed to rest above the Roman horizon, at the foot of the pit for the lift shaft was found the corner of a mosaic-paved passage which had been laid around a courtyard. [11]
Much of the new building is faced and paved with Ancaster stone and borrows the concept of the glass-covered courtyard from the British Museum in a feature reminiscent of a medieval alley.[ citation needed ]
The main entrance is at the northern, uphill end and leads past, to the left, the café, which faces south across a courtyard, and, to the right, the shop. Passing the reception desk leads to the orientation hall, which is the glass-covered "alley" passing east to west. From it, the visitor reaches auditorium where video or personal introductions to the museum or to education courses may be given; the education suite; the archaeological collection or the New Curtois Gallery, where touring exhibitions are housed. Below these last two, at the downhill end of the building, are the stores and workshops which service the whole. [12]
The sample of mosaic exposed by the pre-construction archaeological excavation is now on view inside the museum, as part of a display extending through all periods from the Ice Age. The mosaic is the largest to be discovered in Lincoln for over a hundred years. [13]
The archaeological exhibition is organised as a timeline from the Stone Age, through Roman, Anglo-Saxon (including the Horncastle boar's head) and Viking occupation to the Medieval period. [14] Much of the Iron Age material is from the dig at Fiskerton, including the Fiskerton log boat. [15] It includes a satellite photograph of the county of Lincolnshire on a scale which permits fields and villages to be sought out, while the picture's extent allows a general pattern of geology and the influence of the Roman roads to show through.
The long-established displays in the Usher Gallery include furniture, clocks and other forms of the decorative arts, from Usher's collection. There is a range of works by J. M. W. Turner, John Piper and L. S. Lowry. The gallery's specialism is in the works of Peter De Wint, a former resident of Lincoln. Other artists with works in the collection include Ivon Hitchens, Charles Haslewood Shannon and Grayson Perry. Four galleries of various sizes are set aside for temporary exhibitions.
The Usher Gallery has an established programme of inviting contemporary curators and artists to exhibit modern and contemporary artwork in the main galleries alongside the Usher collection. In 2014, prints by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse from the touring show Modern Masters went on display at the gallery. [16] In 2013 the conceptual artist and academic Raimi Gbadamosi was invited to curate the rehang display What's Going On, featuring loans from the Arts Council Collection and the British Art Medal Society and works by the contemporary artists Edward Allington, Kimathi Donkor, Amanda Francis, Permindar Kaur, Taslim Martin, Janette Parris, Ritu Sood, Susan Stockwell, Maiko Tsutsumi and Mark Woods. [17]
In May 2006, The Collection was on a short list of four innovative museums being considered for the 2006 Gulbenkian Prize. The prize was awarded to the SS Great Britain. [18]
Under proposals made by Lincolnshire County Council in 2019, the Usher Gallery could have been closed and the building turned into a wedding venue. The authority said it would look at moving some of the artwork to the neighbouring museum. The plans were criticised by art lovers. The county council was looking to save around £750,000 each year from its heritage budget. [19] The council said it would save £100,000 per annum by ceasing to run the Usher as an art gallery. On 2 April 2019 a public meeting was held at Lincoln Minster School to discuss the issue, and on 13 April an art march was held. [20]
Following discussions between the county council and the City of Lincoln Council, it was agreed that the Usher Gallery will remain open but the lease will be amended to enable third-party hire and ceremonies, and Lincoln's museum and art collections will remain in Lincolnshire. [21]
Lincoln is a cathedral city and district in Lincolnshire, England, of which it is the county town. In the 2021 Census, the Lincoln district had a population of 103,813. The 2021 census gave the urban area of Lincoln, including North Hykeham and Waddington, a recorded population of 127,540.
Penn Museum, formerly known as The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, at the intersection of 33rd and South Streets. It also is close enough for Drexel University students to walk or take SEPTA transportation services. Housing over 1.3 million artifacts, the museum features one of the most comprehensive collections of Middle and Near-Eastern art in the world.
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. The museum is situated in Clifton, about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the city centre. As part of Bristol Culture it is run by the Bristol City Council with no entrance fee. It holds designated museum status, granted by the national government to protect outstanding museums. The designated collections include: geology, Eastern art, and Bristol's history, including English delftware. In January 2012 it became one of sixteen Arts Council England Major Partner Museums.
The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, at 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of contemporary self-taught artists from the United States and abroad.
Fiskerton is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,209. It is situated approximately 6 miles (10 km) east from the city and county town of Lincoln, and on the north side of the River Witham.
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum is a museum, art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility on Jordan Well, Coventry, England.
Sheffield, England, has a large population of amateur, working and professional visual artists and artworks.
York Art Gallery is a public art gallery in York, England, with a collection of paintings from 14th-century to contemporary, prints, watercolours, drawings, and ceramics. It closed for major redevelopment in 2013, reopening in summer of 2015. The building is a Grade II listed building and is managed by York Museums Trust.
The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy.
Bolton Museum is a public museum, aquarium and art gallery in the town of Bolton, England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The museum is housed within the grade II listed Le Mans Crescent near Bolton Town Hall and shares its main entrance with the central library in a purpose-built civic centre.
Peter Randall-Page RA is a British artist and sculptor, known for his stone sculpture work, inspired by geometric patterns from nature. In his words "geometry is the theme on which nature plays her infinite variations, fundamental mathematical principle become a kind of pattern book from which nature constructs the most complex and sophisticated structures".
Montrose Museum opened in 1842 in Montrose, Angus, Scotland. The museum came into being when in 1841 the Montrose Natural History and Antiquarian Society started a fund to expand its space; in order to house its curiosities and wonders ranging from geological and ethnographical artefacts to a collection of natural history objects and fine art. It was accredited by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in June 2009.
The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum is the principal art gallery and museum in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, run by Bedford Borough Council and the trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection.
The Greyfriars, Lincoln was a Franciscan friary in Lincolnshire, England. The surviving building is the remains of the infirmary of the friary, built of dressed stone and brick and dating from c.1230, with mid 19th century additions.
Mary Fitzpayne is an English artist.
James Ward Usher (1845–1921) was a businessman and philanthropist in Lincoln.
Marguerite Horner is a British artist who won the 2018 British Women Artist Award. Her paintings aim to investigate, among other things, notions of transience, intimacy, loss and hope. She uses the external world as a trigger or metaphor for these experiences and through a period of gestation and distillation, makes a series of intuitive decisions that lead the work towards completion.
The Gilling sword is an Anglo-Saxon sword, dating from the late 9th to early 10th centuries AD, found by a schoolboy in a river in 1976 and subsequently acquired by the Yorkshire Museum.
The Fiskerton log boat is an Iron Age log boat, found during excavations in 2001 on the banks of the River Witham near Fiskerton, Lincolnshire.
The Usher Gallery is an art museum in Lincoln, England. The gallery displays a collection of artworks by painters such as J. M. W. Turner and L. S. Lowry. Established in 1927, it is run as part of the Collection.
53°13′54″N0°32′14″W / 53.2318°N 0.5373°W
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