Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

Brighton Art Gallery is a beautiful 19th century listed building set in the heart of the city’s cultural quarter. The building which was originally King George IV’s magnificent stable complex now includes the Brighton Dome concert hall. It is part of 'Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton and Hove'. The museum, founded by local brewer and social reformer Henry Willett, houses one of the most important and diversified collections outside national institutions.

The fine art collection contains some 2,000 paintings, 4,000 watercolours and more than 10,000 prints. The collections have work from 17th century masters such as Jan Lievens, which had once hung in the home of Rembrandt, Nicolaes Maes, Esaias van de Velde and Rembrandt’s pupil Jan Victors. The 18th century boasts examples by Johann Zoffany, Angelica Kauffmann, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and a William Blake tempera painting. Georgian and Victorian examples by Turner, Constable, Alma-Tadema, Samuel Palmer, Rosa Bonheur, and Scottish genre painter Thomas Faed are also to be seen.

More recent works from the 20th century feature examples by artists of the Camden Town Group, Robert Bevan, Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman as well as paintings by Vanessa Bell, Hilda Carline, Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Glyn Philpot, Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland. Unusually for a provincial gallery there are contemporary works by internationally acclaimed artists such as Frank Stella, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Larry Poons and Jules Olitski all resulting from a bequest. Following a £10 million redevelopment, Brighton Museum reopened to the public in May 2002

Hove Museum is located in a handsome, late 19th century, Italianate Victorian villa originally called Brooker Hall. The villa was a private home until 1913 when it was used to house German prisoners during World War I. In 1926 it was purchased by the Hove Corporation for use as a museum, opening to the public in 1927. Hove is managed under the same museum service as Brighton Museum and merged its collection with that of Brighton in 1997.