Rochdale Art Gallery

The gallery was founded in 1903 when the original 1884 library building was extended with a further two galleries being constructed in 1912. Rochdale adopted a policy during the early years of the 20th century of showing what was then contemporary work and historic art from its permanent collection. Following World War II, only exhibits form the permanent collection was shown. The 1960's saw professional full-time curators being appointed as the development of exhibition programmes ensued. In 1978 further modernisation took place and in 2002 it was re-christened Touchstones Rochdale all under the umbrella of Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service.

The art gallery has a collection of around 1500 works of art, comprising paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, some sculpture and applied art, by local, national and a few international artists. It ranges from 16th and 17th-century northern European painting and a substantial collection of Victorian genre, narrative and landscape painting, to 20th-century work and a small collection of contemporary art. There are significant holdings of work by local artists such as Benjamin C Brierley, John Collier (1708-1786), also known as Tim Bobbin, Harold Hemingway, Frederick W Jackson, Edward Stott and Arnold Taylor. Nationally and internationally significant artists represented include Anna Airey, Frank Auerbach, Vanessa Bell, Lucian Freud, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Augustus John, Laura Knight, L.S. Lowry, Lucien Pissarro, Walter Sickert and Stanley Spencer. The contemporary collection is particularly strong in work dating from the 1970's, featuring pieces by Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Gillian Ayres and Nicholas Pope. Other key artists from the 1980's onwards include Susan Hiller, Cornelia Parker, Mariele Neudecker, Laura Ford and Luke Gottelier.

Perhaps the Gallery's best-known work locally is by Charles Burton Barber, (1845-1894) 'A Special Pleader' (1893), a traditional Victorian painting showing a little girl sulking against a wall with her collie dog.