Throughout October and until November 3, the Rye Art Gallery is showing some pictures from the permanent collection. Davida Smith and Louis Turpin, two local artists (also exhibiting in the lower gallery) were asked to chose their favourites for this show. Each decided to choose their own preferences and then, where necessary, compromise. The result is a very interesting exhibition. It is in gallery 6 and I would encourage people to go and view it, with several artists surely known to many art lovers. (Ivan Hitchens, Edward John Burra, Margaret Helen Bernard and more.)
The collection has grown from the group of about 100 pictures bequeathed by painter Mary Elizabeth Stormont (1871-1962) to the Rye Art Gallery Trust she founded in 1957, including paintings and sketches of her own as well as others by her husband Howard Gull Stormont.
The trust was founded by Mary for the benefit, education and enjoyment for local and visiting people. She would surely approve that the gallery is now well established and used. Because of the trustees, friends, supporters and donors, by gift, purchase and bequest, the collection has been expanded to its current status of over 550 works. The hope is that sometime soon two other individuals will be able to choose another group from the collection to be shown.
Pictures by Heidi Foster