Our History

In 1894, the painters Henry Scott Tuke, William Ayerst Ingram and amateur artist John Eva Downing persuaded the Earl of Kimberley to donate a plot of land adjoining Falmouth’s old Manor House on Grove Place to accommodate a new art gallery for the town. Local builder E H Moss was employed to erect the building, and in June 1894 the first Falmouth Art Gallery opened with its inaugural exhibition under the joint directorship of Tuke and Ingram.

The Falmouth Packet of June 9th 1894 reported: ‘The beauties of Falmouth have, from time to time, induced a number of painters to settle in the neighbourhood, and after consideration it was thought that a good exhibition of pictures could be annually, or oftener, furnished from their joint works. That this has proved to be the case is shewn by the erection of the Art Gallery at Grove Place and the fine exhibition of pictures already hung.’ The exhibition, which featured work from many local artists, opened to the public on June 13th with an admission charge of sixpence, or £2.50 in today’s money.

For seventeen years, the gallery at Grove Place was a lively hub for artists from Falmouth and further afield. Artists from Newlyn and St Ives became regular visitors to the town; boating and playing cricket against the Falmouth group. The Newlyn artists even presented amateur dramatics and music recitals in the town; advertised in The Falmouth Packet as ‘drawing room entertainments’.

Notable artists who exhibited at the first Falmouth Art Gallery included Sir Frederick Leighton, Laura Knight, Henry Scott Tuke, John Singer Sargent and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Ingram died in 1913, leaving his American wife, May, to run the gallery. Despite the war, exhibitions were held up until 1916, when the gallery was commandeered as a ‘Studio War Hospital Supply Workroom’, with ladies making felt slippers for the wounded.

In 1928, May Ingram gave up the tenancy of the gallery, which was taken over by Falmouth Women’s Unionists, who turned it into a social centre and renamed it Ingram Hall. When the building was later demolished, art exhibitions had to be held in the local museum at the Town Hall.

In 1894, the same year as the opening of the first Falmouth Art Gallery, construction began on the Passmore Edwards Municipal Buildings on the Moor, where the Falmouth Art Gallery was re-established in its current form in 1978. With grant aid from the Heritage Lottery Fund, together with other funding bodies, the gallery was renovated in the mid-1990s before being re-opened by Sir Tim Rice on May 31st 1996.

The core of Falmouth’s art collection dates from 1923, when Alfred de Pass, a South African businessman and philanthropist, donated many important works to the gallery. It includes works by major British artists such as Dame Laura Knight, Alfred Munnings, Henry Scott Tuke and John William Waterhouse. Grant funding organisations such as The Art Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund have also worked with the gallery to expand its collection, which now comprises over 2,000 artworks that range from Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist paintings to contemporary prints, photography and a children’s illustration archive.

Falmouth Art Gallery also holds one of the most important master print collections outside London. It features engravings, lithographs, woodcuts and screen prints by artists including Durer, Rembrandt, Matisse and Picasso. Twentieth-century and contemporary photography forms a small but significant part of the collection, and the gallery has the largest set of photographs by Lee Miller outside the Lee Miller Archive, together with iconic images by Linda McCartney and Eve Arnold. A Surrealist collection includes photographs by Roland Penrose and works by Henry Moore and Man Ray.

The gallery is home to the largest contemporary collection of automata in a public museum. The collection began due to the huge popularity of a display of automata at an arts and crafts business selling work produced by local artisans which opened on Falmouth’s High Street in 1979. Although the business later moved to London’s Covent Garden, the makers of the automata remained in Cornwall, and the gallery continues to commission new automata today.

In 2009, an Art Fund bequest led the gallery to acquire a new collection which includes etchings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edvard Munch, as well as works by Prunella Clough, who was one of the most important British painters and printmakers of the post-war period. In 2013, the British artist Robert Priseman donated 20 works of art to the gallery. The gift included works by leading British artists including Sir Peter Blake and Mary Webb.

The gallery is also the custodian of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society Henry Scott Tuke collection. Tuke, who was a Falmouth-based artist, famous for his maritime works and paintings of nude boys and young men, was instrumental in the founding of the first Falmouth Art Gallery in 1894 and became one of its early directors.

Falmouth’s first municipal building was the old Town Hall in the High Street. Built as a Congregational chapel in 1710, it was acquired by the lord of the manor, Martin Lister Killigrew of Arwenack Manor, and gifted to the town in 1715. By the end of the nineteenth century, the leaders of the borough decided that as the municipal offices, together with a public library and a science and art school needed to be accommodated, a larger more substantial building was required. The site they chose was located on the west side of The Moor, which had previously been used as the town quarry. Over half of the cost of the construction of the building was financed by the philanthropist and former member of Parliament, John Passmore Edwards, who donated £2,000, and the Truro businessman, Octavius Allen Ferris, who left a bequest of another £2,000. The remainder of the cost was paid for by public subscription.

On April 13th 1894, the foundation stone was laid, and the New Municipal Building opened to the public two years later. Built in grey limestone at a cost of £7,000 and designed by William Henry Tressider in the Italianate style, the building features Tuscan order columns on the facade and a central octagonal lantern with a dome on the roof. The council chamber and municipal offices were originally located in the left wing, the library was based in the central section, while the wing on the right housed the science and art school.

When the Cornish coal mining industry declined, the demand for scientific teaching in Falmouth became limited. As a consequence, it was decided that the School of Science and Art should be replaced, and in 1902 the new Falmouth School of Art opened in Arwenack Avenue. The free space meant that the municipal offices were able to expand, and the building continued to be the borough headquarters for most of the twentieth century.

When Carrick District Council was formed in Truro in 1974, the Municipal Building was no longer the local seat of government. The newly-formed Falmouth Town Council took over the management of Falmouth Art Gallery, previously located in Grove Place, while the management of the library was entrusted to Cornwall County Council. On October 12th 1978, the art gallery was relocated in the vacated space on the first floor of the Municipal Building. When the town council moved its offices to the old post office nearby in 2016, the library moved into the ground floor of the building, which for the first time became entirely dedicated to cultural services.