Museum status for Art School

The Edward Davies building

The School of Art at Aberystwyth University has been awarded Accredited Museum Status by Arts Council England.

The accolade recognises that Aberystwyth University’s School of Art Museum and Galleries demonstrate the highest standards of collection care and management.

Aberystwyth and Glasgow are the only art schools in the UK to have been awarded accredited museum status.

Professor Robert Meyrick, Keeper of Art and Head of the School of Art Museum and Galleries at Aberystwyth, said: “Maintaining our status as an accredited museum is a significant achievement and is testament to the dedication of staff and students here at the School of Art Museum and Galleries. Our collections and galleries now play a greater role than ever before in public engagement activities as well as in the training of fine art and art history students who go on to become artists, art historians, curators and museum professionals.”

Housed in the historic Edward Davies building on the Buarth in Aberystwyth, the galleries stage exhibitions from the School’s internationally-recognised collections of fine and decorative art.

Touring shows are regularly hosted in the School, along with exhibitions of work by staff, students and invited artists.

Exhibitions arranged by the School have also toured to major public galleries and museums throughout the UK.

On show from November 2016 to February 2017 is ‘A Quiet Sincerity’ - an exhibition of loaned artworks celebrating the centenary of the birth of renowned landscape painter John Elwyn (1916-1997) who was born in Newcastle Emlyn.

Also on display is a large representation of prints and drawings from the School’s ‘artist collections’ which are representative of an individual artist's career of several decades.

“The teaching and research potential has been the primary consideration in the acquisition of all artist collections. It is another example of our policy to develop collections of national importance, a valuable resource for future generations of students and scholars,” says Professor Meyrick.

Exhibitions are held in the striking Grade II listed School of Art building on Buarth Mawr in Aberystwyth, as well as the Ceramic Gallery in Aberystwyth Arts Centre. All shows are open to the general public and admission is free.

Teaching quality for the subject of Art at Aberystwyth University was ranked the best in the UK in the 2016 National Student Survey, with overall satisfaction amongst satisfaction also getting the maximum score of 100%.

Latest employability figures show that 100% of graduates were in employment or further study within 6 months of graduating (HESA 2016).

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