Norfolk Contemporary Art Society

By the mid-1950's Norwich Castle Museum had unsurprisingly over a long period acquired a superlative collection of Norwich School artists that included John Crome (1768-1821), John Sell Cotman (1782-1842), Henry Bright (1810-1873), John Constable (1776–1837) and Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) to name but a few. Since its foundation in 1956, the Society's primary aim was and still is to encourage the Castle Museum to acquire works by artists (not necessarily associated with the county) working in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Society has acquired its own art collection which forms the basis of holdings in post-war art housed in the Castle Museum. Artists whose work has been lent to the Museum include Jeffrey Camp, Prunella Clough, Alan Davie, Patrick George, Peter Lanyon, Wyndham Lewis, F.E. McWilliam, Eduardo Paolozzi, Mary Potter, Anne Redpath, Alan Reynolds, Ceri Richards, Colin Self and Graham Sutherland again to name but a few. The Society has also acquired by purchase are works by Sandra Blow, Derrick Greaves, Howard Hodgkin, John Hoyland, L.S. Lowry, Tom Phillips and Keith Vaughan. More recently, it has raised funds, often matched nationally pound-for-pound in order to purchase sculptures for public places in Norwich. These include major pieces by George Fullard and Liliane Lijn and a mural by Walter Kershaw. For Castle Green, the Society has commissioned a bronze entitled 'Parrot Head' by the late Bernard Reynolds and the aluminium Monument to Daedalus by Jonathan Clarke. Furthermore, the Society regularly joins forces with local galleries and other arts organisations such as the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norfolk Museums Service, Norwich Twenty Group and Norwich University of the Arts amongst others to promote and exhibit art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

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