Swanage, Public and Popular Art

I went to Swanage today, in the hope of seeing a collection of significant paintings at the Swanage Museum and Heritage Centre. I was particularly interested in the Alfred Palmer and Job Hardy works. It turns out they can currently only be seen online, as the new Heritage Centre has no room to display them. This BBC information was rather misleading. Perhaps I didn't read it carefully enough.

I wasn't (of course) expecting to see work by Augustus John, Charles Conder, Paul Nash, Henry Tanworth Wells or Leslie Moffat Ward, but I was hoping to soak in the atmosphere of the town and an environment which has attracted so many artists. Swanage still has plenty to offer.

There's the Art Trail, and the Heritage Centre holds some excellent loose-leaf files compiled by Robert Field, containing many photocopied reproductions of local landscapes: Swanage, Purbeck, Corfe Castle, Worbarrow Bay and Lulworth, as seen by a host of different artists. I will certainly be going back, when the Heritage Centre puts some of the landscapes on display in connection with the AONB Drawing Inspiration project. Hopefully I will be able to make an appointment to see some of the stored works much sooner.

In the meantime, the results of a less serious short walk along the seafront and on the pier: