Art Treasures Exhibition

This exhibition displays paintings from the collections of the former Hitchin and Letchworth Museums, shown together for the first time. The two museums closed in 2012, and their collections were merged to form the North Hertfordshire Museum collection. A later exhibition will display prints and watercolours from the collection, while this one concentrates on oil paintings. Some of our most interesting paintings are already on display throughout this museum, so do look out for them during your visit.

Both previous museums were fortunate to have art collections, and although each concentrated on local artists, the collections were very different. Hitchin Museum was particularly strong on oils and watercolours by members of the Quaker brewing family, the Lucases, especially Samuel Lucas Snr., (1805-1870). The Hitchin collection also contained striking views of Hitchin market and St Mary’s Church by Belgian artist Gerard Ceunis (1885-1964), who had trained at the Ghent Academy, and fled to the UK in 1914, settling in Hitchin. A later refugee was the Austrian artist and sculptor Theodore Kern (1900-1969), who had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and spent the final thirty years of his life in Hitchin.

The stars of the Letchworth collection were artists who had come to the new Garden City in its early years, attracted by its ‘simple life’ ethos; particularly Spencer Gore (1878-1914) and William Ratcliffe (1870-1955). Ratcliffe lived in Letchworth on and off throughout his life, and Letchworth Museum built up the largest collection of his work in the country. Many watercolours were given to the museum after the artist’s death, but it also acquired a number of significant oil paintings, all purchased with grant aid from the Art Fund, the ACE/V & A Purchase Grant Fund, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the Hertfordshire Heritage Fund. Another interesting artist drawn to the early Garden City was Margaret Thomas (1842-1929), who travelled throughout Europe and the Middle East in the later years of the 19th century, painting as she went.

For more information visit https://northhertsmuseum.org/north-hertfordshire-museum/whats-on-2/exhibitions/