Harris Museum and Art Gallery

Opened to the public in 1893 following an endowment of £300,000 and artworks from local lawyer Edmund Robert Harris, the city council built Preston’s first museum and art gallery. However as a starting point local businessman Richard Newsham had also bequeathed his collection of Victorian academic art to the town a few years earlier.

Focusing on British art from the 19th-century to the present, the collection includes works by Samuel Palmer and JMW Turner. The modern collection holds significant paintings by Lucian Freud, Ivon Hitchens, Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer and Graham Sutherland. In addition with a focus to work in a digital medium, the museum has acquired photographic works by Helen Chadwick, Andy Goldsworthy and Boyd Webb.

Sculpture from the 19th and early 20th centuries is well represented with works by Frederick, Lord Leighton, Gilbert Bayes and Alfred Gilbert.