After being closed for several years, the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will gradually reopen. A large part of the exhibition rooms as well as temporary exhibitions open to the public this week: the industrial gallery, the round room and the Bridge gallery. The museography has refocused on the history and population of Birmingham through the different galleries. The industrial gallery presents a new display, “Made in Birmingham”, around different objects which embody the history of the city such as old advertising billboards.
The Bridge gallery dedicated to the city’s important people and places exhibits Modern Muse (2019), a series of portraits of South Asian women by artist Arpita Shah, recently acquired by the museum. Also new, the exhibition features miniature portraits of Arjumand Banu Begum (Mumtaz Mahal), a 17th-century Indian empress; this is the first object acquired by the friends of the museum for the city of Birmingham in 1931.
The Round Room, one of the museum’s most iconic spaces, reopens with pieces by David Cox, Jitish Kallat, Joan Eardley and Cold War Steve and Lucifer (1945), the bronze sculpture by Jacop Epstein that visitors can admire again.
Arthur Charles Shorthouse (1870–1953), Official portrait of the City of Birmingham Rat Catcher1927, 68.6 x 56 cm, oil on canvas.
The renovation work allowed the museum to open “Wild City”, two new permanent galleries that tell the story of the place and history of nature in the city for children. Young audiences can admire the Portrait of the city’s rat catcher painted by Arthur Charles Shorthouse in 1927.
The museum had partially reopened in 2022 with exhibitions during the Commonwealth Games. It closed again until 2024 to carry out work to modernize the heating, electricity and elevator installations. The €6 million works were funded by the government’s Museum Estate and Development Fund, grants from the FCC communities foundation, the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund and Friends of the Birmingham Museum .
The round room of the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, in the center the sculpture Lucifer by Jacop Epstein.
© BMAG
The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery was founded in 1829 on the initiative of the Birmingham Society of Artists. The museum has important collections of paintings from the 14th century to today, a collection of decorative art and design and textile and folkloric pieces. Among a very fine collection of Pre-Raphaelite artists, the museum has the largest collection of works by Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898).
The institution is planning a reopening in several stages in order to build a stable financing plan. This gradual opening is explained by the significant budget cuts for the arts announced by the municipality in February 2024. The city’s municipal council is bankrupt and must make 300 million pounds sterling in savings (359 million euros), reports the BBC.
