Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery to reopen for world-famous Pre-Raphaelite art exhibition - Victorian Radicals

Art lovers who have been missing a trip to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) are in luck.

The city's world-famous collection of Pre-Raphaelite art is going on display in The Gas Hall for the first time in more than five years in a special homecoming exhibition called Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement.

BMAG closed in November 2022 for ongoing essential maintenance work and plans to reopen fully in summer 2024, with several gallery spaces within the main museum opening ahead of then - including The Gas Hall for this display.

The Victorian Radicals exhibition will give visitors the chance to discover the story of the Pre-Raphaelites – Britain’s first modern art movement – and their influence on artists and makers well into the 20th century.

It will include paintings, drawings, jewellery, glass, textiles and metalwork to explore a radical vision for art and society. The collection also celebrates Birmingham’s historic importance as a centre for the Arts and Crafts. Visitors will be able to explore three generations of progressive British artists working between 1840 and 1910. With more than 160 works on display, by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddall, the exhibition’s paintings, drawings, watercolours, and decorative arts explore the relationship between art and nature and the search for beauty in an age of industry. Visitors will also be able to take home collectible gifts and reproduction artwork from the range which will be on sale in a special Gas Hall gift shop, including a limited range of illustrated print products inspired by one of the show’s headline pieces – Musica by Kate Bunce. The Victorian Radicals exhibition will open at The Gas Hall in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, on February 10, 2024. Victoria Osborne, Curator of Fine Art at Birmingham Museums Trust and one of the exhibition’s co-curators, said: “We’re excited to celebrate the homecoming of Birmingham's Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts collections by opening Victorian Radicals here in the city. This exhibition highlights one of the great strengths of Birmingham’s collection and also highlights its importance as a centre for the Arts and Crafts movement at the end of the 19th century.

“The ‘Victorian Radicals’ believed that art and creativity could change the world and be a real force for good in society. The questions they explored in their lives and work are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago.”

Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, co-CEOs of Birmingham Museums Trust, said: “Birmingham has missed its radicals, and it has missed its museum too. By starting to reopen next year, we start a new chapter – it is incredibly exciting to be weeks away from welcoming visitors back to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery."

Here are 10 artworks from the Victorian Radicals exhibition: