The Women's Art Collection (New Hall Art Collection)
More than 600 works by women artists, hung throughout the modernist buildings of Murray Edwards College.
At Murray Edwards College, art by women artists of the twentieth century onwards hangs in corridors, dining spaces and grounds rather than behind museum doors. The holding is known as the Women's Art Collection; until April 2022 it carried the name New Hall Art Collection, after the college's name before 2008. The collection holds over 600 works, covering paintings, prints and sculpture, and has been described as "one of the largest and most significant collections of contemporary art by women in the world".
How it began
It all began in 1986, when the college bought one work following an artist's stay in residence. The purchase raised the idea of a lasting collection of twentieth-century women's art whose purpose was to inspire the students who lived around it. Six years after that, in 1992, the college's head approached about a hundred leading women artists in Britain by letter; around 75 of them sent a work. Since then both artists and former students have added to it through gifts and loans. Arts Council England accredited the collection on 7 March 2018.
The setting
The works are not confined to one gallery. They hang through the college's buildings and grounds, with a gallery corridor given over to temporary exhibitions. The architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon finished the modernist buildings in 1965, and they are Grade II* listed, so the art and the architecture can be seen together.
Practical notes
A good number of the works can be seen by visitors, and the Porters' Lodge can supply a self-guided tour. Check the collection's website for current visiting arrangements before you go.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
