North Ayrshire’s Heritage Team looks after over 600 pieces of art, from paintings to sculpture, collage and decoupage, we’ve got a diverse selection of artworks. Most of our artwork dates from the mid 19th century to present day and we’re still actively collecting.
If you’re looking for a painting that captures a moment in time of the history of North Ayrshire, or a dynamic modern abstract, we’re bound to have something in our collections for you to look at.
A few of our highlights include paintings by Glasgow Boys Sir John Lavery and George Henry, paintings and etchings by Dalry artist George Houston, a small collection of work by Christopher Meadows and a large collections of paintings of Clyde Steamers by local enthusiast Charles Glen. We’ve also got our very large oil painting of Archibald William Montgomerie by John Graham Gilbert on permanent display, watching over us while we work in the Heritage Centre.
We love the local scenes by many artists, including Stevenston’s James Wylie, that remind us of days gone by in our North Ayrshire Towns and the portraits of proud dignitaries from the past in all their regalia.
On the subject of portraits, we have the Well Kent Faces Exhibition by David Reid in our collection. They were commissioned for the reopening of the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine in 2012 but they’ve been displayed many times since then.
We hope that you enjoy these artworks – we’re just starting this section so please do keep coming back to see what we’ve added!
