Watts Gallery – Artists' Village is an art gallery in the village of Compton, near

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

in Surrey. It is dedicated to the work of the Victorian-era painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts. The gallery has been

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

since June 1975.

History

Watts moved to "Limnerslease" in Compton in 1891, and with his artist wife, Mary Fraser-Tytler, planned a museum devoted to his work, which opened in April 1904, just before his death. The architect of the Gallery was Christopher Hatton Turnor, an admirer of Edwin Lutyens and C.F.A. Voysey. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, the building contains top-lit galleries that allow Watts's work to be displayed under natural light. It is one of only a few galleries in the UK devoted to a single artist, and is often hailed as a national gallery in the heart of a village. The present director is Alistair Burtenshaw and the curator is Dr Cicely Robinson. Former curators include Dr Nicholas Tromans,

Wilfrid Blunt Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodline ...

, Richard Jefferies and Mark Bills. Watts Gallery is a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

under English law. Watts Gallery was placed second in the final of the BBC TV series ''

Restoration Village ''Restoration'' was a set of BBC television series where viewers decided on which listed building that was in immediate need of remedial works was to win a grant from Heritage Lottery Fund. It first aired in 2003. The host of all three series w ...

'' in 2006. In January 2008 it was announced that the Gallery intended to

deaccession Deaccessioning is the process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum's collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.Report from the AAMD Task Force on Deaccessioning. 2010. ''AAMD Policy on Deaccessioning' ...

and sell two Victorian paintings, ''Sleeping Woman'' (1880) by Albert Joseph Moore and ''Triumph of Love'' (1871) by

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

, which had both been bequeathed to the collection by Cecil French. These were duly sold. The money was used to maintain the Gallery which was closed from September 2008 until 2010 for restoration. In December 2006 Watts Gallery received a £4.3 million grant from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

for renovations to help safeguard the future of the building and its collections. Watts Gallery reopened in June 2011 after a major scheme of works, including extension, refurbishment and restoration. Visitors can now experience the Watts collection in the historic galleries displaying the original decorative schemes. Over one-hundred paintings by G. F. Watts are on permanent display at the Gallery. Spanning a period of 70 years they include portraits, landscapes and his major symbolic works. From the dramatic entrance of the Livanos Gallery to the monumental sculpture and studio artefacts in the Sculpture Gallery, Watts Gallery shows the collection left by the artist as his legacy. In January 2016, Watts Gallery opened the newly renovated "Limnerslease", the former home and studio of G. F. and Mary Watts, completing the Artists' Village. Compton's burial ground, nearby, houses Watts' remains and is dominated by the ornate Arts & Crafts Watts Mortuary Chapel, designed by Watts' wife Mary, also run by the museum. In 2017, Surrey County Council was the subject of some controversy when it agreed to provide a grant to the gallery of £100,000 per annum over 4 years to make up for loss of grants from elsewhere, at a time when the council were making cuts of £34 million to local services.

De Morgan Foundation

Following the closure of the De Morgan Centre, London, in the summer of 2014, the Watts Gallery and the De Morgan Foundation, a registered charity preserving the work of William De Morgan and Evelyn De Morgan, entered into a collaboration which saw the opening of a long term exhibition in the Richard Jeffries Gallery in the main gallery building. This exhibition includes a number of key works from the De Morgan Collection.

References

External links

*
De Morgan Foundation websiteBBC ''Restoration Village'' on Watts Gallery
* {{authority control Grade II* listed buildings in Surrey Museums in Surrey Art museums and galleries in Surrey Biographical museums in Surrey Buildings and structures completed in 1904 Art museums established in 1904 1904 establishments in England Charities based in England Watts

History

De Morgan Foundation

See also

References

External links