Beecroft Art Gallery

Beecroft Art Gallery is a gallery in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. Prior to 2014, the gallery was formerly located in and Edwardian building on Station Road at Westcliff-on-Sea which was donated to the people of Southend-on-Sea in 1952 by Walter Beecroft to house his eclectic collection of art works. Walter Beecroft was a solicitor in nearby Leigh. He had already set up an Art Gallery Sub-Committee of the Public Libraries & Museum Committee in 1928, and in 1947 he proposed to endow a building to become and Art Gallery. Eventually, this led to the Beecroft Art Gallery on Station Road. Beecroft also endowed the Beecroft Bequest, an art purchase fund administered by the Museums Association. The gallery was resited in 2014 to the former home of the Central Library on Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-Sea.
Beecroft Art Gallery has a permanent collection of over 2000 works, ranging from 17th-century Dutch paintings to contemporary works. The collection includes examples by artists such as Molenaer, Ruisdael and Berchem plus 19th-century artists including Rossetti, Constable and Edward Lear. There are works by Carel Weight, the Great Bardfield Group, and a fine bronze by Jacob Epstein. The local artist Alan Sorrell is represented by his Drawings of Nubia series depicting a visit to Egypt prior to the building of the Aswan Dam. The Thorpe Smith Collection of local landscape views contains paintings, drawings and prints from as early as 1803.

More information

Comments Statistics

| | Public