Winter Lecture Series:   In the final lecture of the series, on Monday 22 March John Iddon will tell us about the Horace Walpole exhibition we’ll be visiting a week later.

Exhibitions in the Museum: the ‘What’s New?’ exhibition in the Watercolour Gallery is now open and will run for several months.  Included on display are 18 items purchased partly or wholly with the help of The Friends.  Some of these are annotated as being in the Exhibition in News.

The Temporary Gallery on the Ground floor is currently home to The Shape of Things, an exhibition of contemporary craft, which runs until 18 April.

Art from the New World from 1 May – 27 June is an exhibition of contemporary art featuring 45 internationally acclaimed and up and coming artists from the Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, displaying a mix of photography, paintings and sculpture. More details to follow soon.

One for flying enthusiasts! From September the exhibition BAC 100 celebrates the Aviation Industry and its impact on the West.

Finally, the Museum recently commissioned ‘Container’, an artists’ organisation, to deliver a series of six new works by six artists over the next 12 months under The Plinth Project. These works will be placed on or around the empty permanent plinth that is located in the Front Hall of the Museum.  The first artist to display his work, from 1 March - 25 April, is Ben Rowe. Click on News for further details.

Tours: As part of the Shape of Things exhibition (see above) you can meet the following Curators at 12 noon, and explore the collections which inspired the artists taking part in that exhibition as follows:

Karin Walton: British ceramics -  Wednesday 10 March
Sue Giles: World textiles / Kate Newnham: Chinese glass  -  Saturday 20 March
Kate Iles: Archaeological ceramics - Saturday 10 April

On Wednesday 17 March from 5-6pm Paul Sullivan, Communities Engagement Officer and Julia Carver, exhibition curator, discuss the exhibition.

To attend any of the above free,  just book in advance on 0117 922 3581.

Looking ahead: this year’s  annual Lecture/Lunch at Trinity College will take place on Wednesday 21 July.  Put this date in your diary so you don’t miss it.   Why?  Because the lecturer is again Pamela Halford who gave us such a brilliant talk last year on Faberge.  This time she will be talking about ‘Painted People -  plain, pleasing or puzzling. The Intriguing Story of Portraiture’.  Further details in the Full Events List.  The booking form will be in the May Bulletin.

Tony Kitt (Website manager) 9 March 2010