University of Warwick Art Collection

The University of Warwick whose main building only opened in 1967 soon after commissioned the building of an arts centre in 1970. The building was completed in 1974 and redeveloped in 1997 with the addition of a glass atrium above the contemporary galleries allowing more light to enter the building complex.

The university's collection dates from the founding of the University in 1965. Works totalling more than 800 pieces include 1960's colour field paintings by North American Abstract Expressionists Jack Bush and Gene Davis. There is a trail of contemporary sculpture across the campus that includes notable works by Ian Davenport, Peter Randall-Page, Richard Deacon and Toby Paterson. There is a consistent movement of work from the collection around the campus, keeping the audience on its toes. Many are displayed in the university's Mead Gallery which is one of the biggest exhibition spaces in the Midlands. Other artists represented include Gillian Ayres, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, Alan Davie, Mary Fedden, Barry Flanagan, Elisabeth Frink, Terry Frost, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Andy Goldsworthy, Maggie Hambling, Richard Hamilton, Patrick Heron, Albert Irvin, LS Lowry, Henry Moore, John Nash, Eduardo Paolozzi, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Michael Rothenstein, Graham Sutherland and many others. The non-British contingent are extremely well represented with works by Josef Albers, Le Corbusier, Roy Lichtenstein, Marino Marini, Frank Stella, Elsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol.

Warwick Arts Trust is as far as I know, unrelated to any of the above but I am happy to be corrected. It was a gallery situated at 33 Warwick Square and was originally it was built as a gallery and residence for the Scottish society portrait artist James Rannie Swinton, (1816-1888). Allegedly much later the dancer Isadora Duncan subsequently used one room as a studio and, more recently, it housed the Grosvenor School of Modern Art and operated as an exhibition space for contemporary art during the 1980's.