Details - trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, 22nd April 2026

 

Ashmolean Museum, image wiki commons Julian Herzog

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD

 

WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL 2026 – Leaving Newbold Comyn at 8.30am with the usual pick up opposite the Spa Centre about 5 minutes later.

 

IN BLOOM – How Plants Changed Our World

What do we really know about the plants and flowers in our gardens and window boxes?

Beyond their beauty, many have hidden histories – tales of exploration, obsession and knowledge.

 

This major new exhibition takes visitors on a journey from Oxford to the farthest corners of the world and back, uncovering the global stories behind some of Britain's most beloved blooms – from roses and tulips to camellias and peonies.

 

Featuring over 100 artworks and objects, including drawings, paintings, rare prints and ceramics, In Bloom explores our changing relationship with the natural world.

 

While the trip is based on this exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, with time to look at the permanent collection and visit the cafe before we go into the exhibition at 1.00pm, you are, of course, free to do anything!  Modern Art Oxford in Pembroke Street will be open and their ground floor gallery is free.

Christ Church Picture Gallery is also open, there is a small concessions charge.  See their website for how to access the Gallery.  Even a visit to Westgate Shopping Centre is possible!!

 

There should be time for a cup of tea before we leave at 4.30pm.  Our driver is allowed to drop off and pick up outside the Ashmolean.

 

Booking slip below for bookings with cheque to The Secretary, 23 Archery Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 3PT                

 

Bookings by Bank Transfer: HSBC  Friends of Leamington Art Gallery

a/c 90360244    sort code 40-27-06   Your name for Reference

It is essential to secure your place that you email to tell us you have booked and where you are boarding the coach.  

 

We will confirm your place(s)  by email. Contact on day - 0779508576

Art Fund members – remember to bring your membership card.                             

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ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD – WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL

 

Cheques payable to Friends of Leamington Art Gallery NOT Flag

 

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I would like ..…....... place(s) at £33.50 Art Fund Member and enclose cheque for £...................

 

 

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Boarding coach at Newbold Comyn  (     ) or Spa Centre (     )

Open 2026 - how FLAG helps.

Behind every artwork is time, skill, risk, and a real person hoping their work connects.

That’s why FLAG sponsor the Visitors’ Choice Award at the Biennial; £500 is awarded to the artist the public loves most.

If you’re visiting the exhibition which opens next week, please cast your vote. It’s a small action that can mean a great deal.

And if you believe in supporting artists in our area, do follow us or consider becoming a member. It’s through your support that we can continue initiatives like this.

 

The OPEN 2026

Friday 20th February - Sunday 3rd May

A SHOWCASE FOR ARTISTS BASED IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

 

OPEN exhibitions have been a regular and popular feature of Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum’s programme since the 1930s and they always offer a great diversity of artwork from across the region.

The winner will receive the OPEN 2026 Artist’s Award of £1,000 alongside a spotlight exhibition at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum. Throughout the exhibition visitors will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite artwork and the winner of the People’s Choice Award vote will receive £500, sponsored by Flag.

Royal Leamington Spa enters UK Town of Culture 2028

 

Leamington Spa Is Bidding to Become a UK Town of Culture 🎉

Exciting news for Leamington Spa: the town is officially preparing a bid to become a UK Town of Culture.

Launched by the government, the 2028 UK Town of Culture competition is the first of its kind and is all about celebrating the unique cultural life, creativity and identity of towns across the country. Alongside the prestigious title, the winning town will receive significant government funding to help deliver a year-long cultural programme.

Leamington Spa will be entering the competition in the medium town category. Applications are open until 31 March, with a shortlist expected to be announced later in the spring.

The process happens in stages. Towns that make it onto the shortlist will receive £60,000 to help develop their final bids. From there, three finalists will be chosen – one from each town size category. The overall winners will receive £3 million, while the two runners-up will each be awarded £250,000 to bring parts of their cultural programmes to life.

The Mayor of Leamington Spa, Cllr Ruggy Singh, shared his enthusiasm for the bid, highlighting the town’s thriving arts scene, diverse communities, beautiful parks and rich history. He also stressed that this bid is about looking at Leamington Spa from fresh perspectives — and that it can’t happen without local people.

To help shape the bid, residents, creatives, organisations and anyone who loves Leamington Spa are invited to get involved from the very beginning. A series of informal drop-in sessions will be taking place across town in February, offering a chance to find out more about the Town of Culture bid and share ideas.

Drop-in session dates:

• Lillington Community Centre, 3 Mason Avenue, CV32 7QE
  Wednesday 11 February, 5–8pm

• The Sydni Centre, Cottage Square, CV31 1PT
  Monday 16 February, 5–8pm

• Town Hall, Parade
  Tuesday 17 February, 5–8pm

Everyone is welcome to pop along, whether you have a fully formed idea, a spark of inspiration, or you’re just curious to learn more.

There’s also an online survey available for anyone who’d like to support the bid but can’t attend in person.

Together, this is a chance to showcase what makes Leamington Spa special, and to imagine what our cultural future could look like.

A painting at the gallery has it's first showing!

Friday Focus review by Membership Secretary, Flag.

 

 No. 1 Kenilworth Road, Leamington Spa. Painted by Joseph Parsons (1932)

   

At the Friday Focus on 30th January 2025, we were able to see a painting from the collection that's not been seen in public before.

The talk given by the Leamington Literary Society was extremely interesting and featured lots of books and their writers who had lived in or passed through Leamington.

The image in one of the books turned out to be a painting that the gallery had in store, and we were all delighted to be able to see it. The building hidden in the distance behind the trees is the Town Hall. The connection was the poem by John Betjeman called Death in Leamington. The painting has been used to illustrate the poem. It was among his earliest published works in the early 1930s, long before his appointment as Poet Laureate in 1972.

 

Here's a link to the poem which we can't quote because it's still in copyright. 

 

The poem tells the story of a busy nurse who discovers that her employer, living in an impressive house in Leamington Spa, has passed away. A passionate advocate for historic buildings, Betjeman uses the setting to explore mortality alongside architectural decline. He draws attention to details such as “large round plate-glass windows,” “flaking stucco,” and “yellow Italianate arches,” linking these features to the “grey, decaying face” of the dead woman.

 

Through precise observation and rich imagery, from the placement of furniture to the sound of falling plaster, Betjeman creates a vivid and haunting atmosphere. I especially liked the line about the lonely crochet, lying patiently unstirred, and the fingers that would have work'd it being dead as the spoken word.
 
Many of his poems were rooted in real locations rather than abstract ideas, which helps explain his fascination with Leamington Spa. Its elegant Regency terraces and crescents would have appealed to someone so deeply committed to preservation. Betjeman was actively involved in organisations such as the SPAB, the Victorian Society, and the Georgian Group.

Today, his legacy is perhaps most visibly celebrated by the statue welcoming travellers at St Pancras Station in London — a grand neo-Gothic landmark that he famously helped to save from demolition in the 1960s.

Oh, and he went to enormous lengths to save the pier at Clevedon which is always worth a visit if you're heading south west!  

 

Sadly, not a lot is known about the artist or his works, and further research so far has been unsuccessful. 

 

 

 

Dulwich Picture Gallery - photos

 Flag Trip reports - 27th January 2026  1) Cherry Rosewall 2) Jane Farrington

 "Anna Ancher (1859–1935), one of Denmark’s most celebrated and pioneering artists, in her first-ever UK exhibition.

Known for her luminous paintings, bold use of colour, and ability to capture light like no other, Ancher offers a fresh and powerful perspective on the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Though a household name in Denmark, Ancher is little known in the UK. This landmark exhibition brings her work to British audiences for the first time, showcasing over 40 paintings from across her career — including masterpieces on loan from The Hirschsprung Collection and Skagens Museum.

Though a household name in Denmark, Ancher is little known in the UK. This landmark exhibition brings her work to British audiences for the first time, showcasing over 40 paintings from across her career — including masterpieces on loan from The Hirschsprung Collection and Skagens Museum.

A central figure among the Skagen Painters, Ancher grew up in the fishing village she so often depicted. Her intimate connection to the town and its people shines through in her work — from the contemplative Old Man Whittling Sticks (1880), her formal debut as an artist, to the radiant Sunlight in the Blue Room (1891), where light becomes almost tangible.

Her art bridges tradition and modernity, drawing on French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism while remaining deeply rooted in the culture and rhythms of coastal Denmark.

  https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/anna-ancher-painting-light/

Adults from £18 
free for members 

Image:  Anna Ancher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
 

Further text and images by Cherry Rosewall

It was a very interesting trip which everyone seemed to enjoy despite a long journey in dreadful wet weather. 

 

Sir John Soane designed the gallery in 1811 and it opened in 1817. Apparently it was the world's first public picture gallery! There is even a mausoleum inside the building with the tombs of the founders.

 

The Anna Ancher exhibition was wonderful and there are many famous artists in the permanent collection. Pictures are some Anna Ancher and a Rembrandt. 

 

 By Jane Farrington.

ANNA ANCHER – Painting Light

Dulwich Picture Gallery 4 Nov 25 – 8 Mar 26

 

Perhaps it is not surprising to learn that this is the first exhibition on the Danish artist, Anna Ancher to be held in the UK.  Scandinavian art is poorly represented in British public collections and women artists of past centuries have been routinely side-lined and neglected.  However, when an intrepid group of FLAG members arrived at Dulwich Picture Gallery on a dark, wet January day, the exhibition was buzzing with visitors and it is not hard to see why.

 

Ancher lived and worked for most of her life amongst the impoverished fishing community of Skagen on Denmark’s northernmost tip.  She became a central figure in a colony of artists known as the Skagen Painters and it is, I think, significant the she was the only member of the group to be born and raised in Skagen.  Looking at her work, it seems that the bleak, flat landscape with it pale northern light and the lined weather-beaten faces of the inhabitants are part of her own life-blood.  That close connection comes across in the variety of subject-matter she tackled – landscapes, the seashore, portraits and scenes of everyday life – and the warmth and empathy that she portrays.  This particularly comes out in her depiction of light which is subtly present even in the darkest cottage interiors.  Soft beams of sunlight glow through gauze curtains, creep across tiled floors and along white-washed walls and flicker over the faces of young and old.  Solitary female figures in domestic spaces recall Vermeer and her portraits, particularly of elderly sitters, have a Rembrandt-like humanity in their tenderness.  I particularly admired a small-scale head and shoulders portrait of an elderly fisherman.  His rough, weather-beaten face and intense, anxious gaze conveyed vividly the harsh, isolated way-of-life at Skagen.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, Ancher was not isolated in her own life, travelling with her husband in Europe and, most significantly, spending some time in Paris in the 1880s.  Her observation of reflective rainbow colours on, for example, a white tablecloth or a painted garden bench show the impact of French Impressionism.  Like the Impressionist painters, the most ordinary, everyday subjects she chose to depict, have a glowing luminosity which convey so vividly a particular time and place – her own world.