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Soon: Pre-Raphaelite collection returns to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Via Birmingham Museums
October 2025: Works from Birmingham’s world-class Pre-Raphaelite collection will be back on public display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from Saturday 25th October 2025.
Four newly refurbished galleries of over sixty paintings, sculptures and stained glass by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Frederick Sandys will be open to visitors as part of the museum’s continued phased reopening.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was Britain’s first modern art movement. In the mid-19th century, its artists painted traditional subjects in radical ways and responded to a rapidly changing world. They looked back to the bright colours and realism of medieval art to create a new style for a modern age. As they admired art from before the Italian painter Raphael (1483 to 1520), they called themselves Pre-Raphaelites.
Birmingham has the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art and design in the world. Selected from this outstanding collection, the displays will introduce audiences to the Pre-Raphaelites and their circle, from their early works through to artists working in Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century.
Visitors will be able to see some of the collection’s most popular pieces, including Night with her Train of Stars by Edward Robert Hughes, which will be on public view for the first time in a decade. Hughes’ picture is a watercolour and is only on display for limited periods to protect it from damage by light.
Other highlights include new acquisitions by female artists, including the first oil painting by a female Pre-Raphaelite to enter the city’s collection – Emma Sandys’ Young Woman with a Rose – and The Puritan Maiden Priscilla by Birmingham painter Kate Bunce, which is on show in the museum for the first time.
There will also be the chance to see important pictures on long-term loan from private collections, including paintings by Joanna Boyce Wells, Burne-Jones and Arthur Hughes.
The opening of the Pre-Raphaelite galleries also means that visitors will once again have unrestricted access through to the Staffordshire Hoard during museum opening hours, rather than by guided viewings only.
Victoria Osborne, Senior Curator (art) at Birmingham Museums Trust, said:
We’re delighted that visitors will once again be able to enjoy free access to works from Birmingham’s outstanding Pre-Raphaelite collection.
We’ll be developing these displays further over time, particularly through new research into the global links of Birmingham’s Victorian art and design collections. There will be space for visitors to tell us what they enjoy and what they want to see in the future.”
Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, Co-chief executives of Birmingham Museums Trust, said:
We know that Birmingham has missed its Pre-Raphaelites and it’s very exciting to be at a point in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s phased reopening when we can welcome visitors through our doors to see these works of art back on public display.
Whether you have known of the Pre-Raphaelites for years or you’re new to them, the display aims to shine a fresh light on the art, the artists, and why Birmingham has this collection.”
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is open daily at Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3DH from 10.00am to 5.00pm. General admission is FREE. Discover more here: birminghammuseums.org.uk/birmingham-museum-and-art-gallery.
