Visiting the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool

The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool offers a contrast to the town’s often garish seaside attractions, providing a space dedicated to arts and culture. Opened in 1911, the gallery has become an integral part of Blackpool’s cultural landscape.

Over the years, the gallery has played a significant role in Blackpool’s cultural development. It has hosted numerous exhibitions featuring works by both local and international artists. The Grundy Art Gallery’s collection includes a range of paintings, prints and decorative arts, with a focus on British art from the 19th and 20th centuries. In recent years, the gallery has also become known for its contemporary art exhibitions, which often explore themes relevant to Blackpool’s social and cultural context.

The Grundy Art Gallery is Blackpool’s principal art museum, noted for its collection of British modernist art. (Photo: Barbara Carr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

What to see at the Grundy Art Gallery

Visitors to the Grundy Art Gallery can see a diverse range of artworks across different media.

One of the highlights of the gallery’s permanent collection is its selection of British modernist works, including pieces such as Aircraftsman Shaw by Augustus John and the Yellow Funnel by Eric Ravilious. The gallery also houses an impressive collection of prints, ceramics, and decorative arts.

In addition to visual art, the Grundy Art Gallery occasionally features installations and performances that engage with the unique character of Blackpool.

Temporary exhibitions at the Grundy Art Gallery

In addition to its permanent collection, the Grundy Art Gallery hosts a programme of temporary exhibitions. Current and planned exhibitions include:

OPEN 2025
OPEN 2025 (until 8 March 2025) celebrates artists and makers who live and work in Blackpool and the Fylde coast. In line with Grundy’s founding principles of showing the ‘art of the day’ and echoing Blackpool’s motto of ‘progress’, the gallery is displaying work by local artists created within the last 12 months and which have never been shown at Grundy Art Gallery before. The exhibition aims to be illustrative of the diverse range of artwork being produced throughout Blackpool and the Fylde Coast with many of the works available for sale.

Art Movement
Art Movement (until 8 March 2025) is the Grundy Art Gallery’s Annual Schools’ Exhibition for 2025, exploring how visiting an art gallery affects our emotions. Over 200 pupils from St John’s Primary and Holy Family Catholic Primary visited the gallery in late 2024, viewing exhibitions that examined the concept of ‘stimming’ – a behaviour involving repeated physical movements or sounds, often linked to emotional regulation. Inspired by these works, the pupils created expressive, vibrant artworks reflecting their emotional responses.

Collection Spotlight: All the Feels
Alongside the Annual Schools’ Exhibition, the Grundy Art Gallery presents All the Feels (until 8 March 2025), a Collection Spotlight display. These exhibitions regularly showcase works from the gallery’s collection, offering new contexts and interpretations. For this display, Grundy team members responded to the same brief given to school pupils but instead selected artworks from the collection. Each team member wrote about their chosen piece, reflecting on why it was selected for the exhibition.

Tina Dempsey and Tracy Hill: Grounding
Grounding (until 8 March 2025) is a research project exploring walking, observing, and creating to reflect on place and landscape. Focusing on the Fylde coast, Tina Dempsey and Tracy Hill examine familiar journeys and environments through slow, embodied experiences. The exhibition features their research, new artworks, and selected pieces from the Grundy’s collection. These include representations of the sea, with some works being displayed for the first time at the gallery.

Hondartza Fraga: Upon a Painted Ocean
Hondartza Fraga’s animation Upon a Painted Ocean (until 8 March 2025) accompanies Grounding and centres on the sea as its subject. Created in response to 17th-century Dutch maritime paintings, the animation removes much of their original content, placing emphasis on the sea’s natural power. First exhibited in 2015 at Manchester Art Gallery, the work reimagines the seascapes, shifting focus from depictions of Dutch military and economic strength to the elemental presence of the sea itself.