A Visit to The Holburne Museum: Art and Culture in Bath

 

The Holburne Museum is situated at the boundary of Great Pulteney Street, a road flanked by examples of wealth and grandeur. Town houses break around me like decadent icebergs, ghosts of a period when this was a pleasure city – the Georgian equivalent of Vegas – visible in the flagstones, the gilded iron, the masonry. It was planned that Great Pulteney Street would continue further, beyond Bathwick and Sydney Gardens, but funds ran dry before an extension could be completed. 
 

The weather is temperamental, existing in the confusing transition from winter to spring. Yet the light that finds its way through cracks in the clouds still manages to brighten the golden stone of the museum. The Holburne consists largely of the personal collection of Sir Thomas William Holburne, an aristocrat who bequeathed it to the city in 1882. Originally the site of the Sydney Hotel, this listed building was chosen as a permanent destination for works in 1912 and opened as Bath’s first public gallery four years later. Exhibitions feature everything from oil portraits to decorative utensils. Holburne appreciated porcelain, maiolica, fine art paintings, sketches, coins. Everything of artistic value was collected.

I meet Curatorial Fellow, Kate Vandor, in the museum’s café; an aspect of the eleven-million-pound renovation project completed seven years ago. It’s a modern space that gives way to landscape gardens still dripping with recent rainfall. I can imagine how beautiful they will soon become when colour blooms once more. Art both inside and out. 

 “It has a very diverse collection which reflects – and I think very well – the Georgian history of Bath, but also a broader context,” is Kate’s reply when I ask why people should visit The Holburne Museum. “I think there’s a really nice combination of our own collection and challenging contemporary work.” Past exhibitions have included Linda Brothwell’s The Missing, a collaborative display combining Holburne’s significant number of empty plinths with Brothwell’s own intricate craft works. Kate states that such expositions “highlight the potential for integrating contemporary works with our collection.”

 Kate’s own exhibition – she’s co-curating Bath to Baghdad, a “collection of Islamic decorative art and Persian textiles” – was donated to The Holburne by Ellen Tanner; a local woman who travelled across Persia in the late nineteenth century. “It’s a very diverse collection…there’s such a variety of objects.” Kate calls it a “lovely capsule exhibition”, evocative of time and place. “I mean, when you talk about Persia, you’re talking about parts of Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq…a lot of the world that is currently closed off to us for various complicated reasons.” Kate seems excited at her involvement in an exhibition with both geographical and political significance, as well as a personal connection to the area. 

The conversation moves forward over coffee, and I’m curious about which gallery encapsulates the museum. The Holburne boasts six permanent galleries – five free and a temporary exhibition space available for entry with a charge. For Kate, this is the Posnett Gallery. A densely displayed exhibition “that [she thinks] really shows the depth of the collection. It just gives you an idea of the variety of things that [The Holburne Museum] curates.” I’m told that they care for approximately ten thousand items, highlighting how many aren’t yet available for public viewing, even with the thousands already on display. 

I ask Kate for her opinion on the importance of the arts regarding heritage in Bath. As a World Heritage City, it welcomes around five million visitors each year and generates an estimated fourteen million pounds of annual revenue from the arts and culture. “I think Bath has a heritage that it’s very proud of. There is a real passion for that art culture…it’s something that should be celebrated and protected.” 

Sunlight breaks through the window, catching the lens of my camera. I’m eager to explore the Holburne’s galleries, to see for myself the extent of their collection in this historical space. We finish our drinks, Kate advising where to begin my tour as she packs away her things. “There’s always something new to see,” she says. “Even if you’ve just got half an hour.” 

And I must say, I completely agree.