Please note that this exhibition has now closed due to government restrictions.

The main exhibition at the Fry Art Gallery for 2020 is Random Spectacular featuring familiar and rarely shown work, and will surprise, delight and amuse visitors. The majority have been chosen by invited selectors from various aspects of the arts including artists, designers, musicians, writers and gallery curators.  Here is a link to a video showing highlights from the exhibition.

Accompanying the exhibition is a collaborative journal of the same title which carries contributions and responses to the works in the Fry Art Gallery Permanent Collection, known as the North West Essex Collection.

Published by the St Jude’s Press, all profit from the sale will be donated to the Fry Art Gallery.

Among the work displayed is David Myerscough Jones drawing for the Wagner opera, The Flying Dutchman, for which he designed the sets for the BBC television production in 1975. This drawing was among the first ten works taken into the collection.

A work which has never been shown in the gallery before having entered the collection in 2014 is Surreal Collage by Olive Cook which is also on display. Edward Bawden who was a great supporter of the Gallery will have a number of his iconic works on show and particularly the poster That’s What We Want. Dried Beet Pulp.