The building cost £21 million. There was £15.75 million from the Arts Lottery Fund, £4.5 million from the European Regional Development Fund and £0.3 million from Walsall City Challenge.

It took 10 years in the planning stages and 3 years to build.

Following a two stage international architectural competition, the London based Anglo-Canadian architects Caruso St John were appointed to the project in 1996. The contractors were McAlpine.

In 2008/9 the gallery welcomed 173,397 visitors in 2008 and have welcomed over 1.3 million since opening in February 2000.

The galleries permanent collections contain over 1,500 sculptures, painting and prints.

The gallery opened in February 2000 and was officially opened on 5 May 2000 by HM The Queen

We are open Monday to Saturday 10am-5pm (and Bank Holiday Mondays) and 11am-4pm on Sundays. Opening hours may change over the Christmas period so please check Visit for details.

The gallery has a rolling programme of work placements for unpaid work experience and voluntary placements and offers a limited amount of placements for those individuals studying at first degree level and above only.

There are placements available in several departments including Exhibitions, Collections, Art Library and Archive, Education and Audience Development, Marketing, Operations and Visitor Services.

The building is 37 metres high and covers 4,500 metres of space, the equivalent of a full size football pitch.

The gallery has a café, Costa which is open Monday 8am-6pm Monday to Saturday and 11am -4pm on Sundays.

The Gallery Shop is a great place to find unusual gifts, art books, exhibition catalogues, postcards and stationary, craft kids and gallery merchandise and artists notebooks.

The Art Library is a free resource for everyone to find out more about art, the history of the gallery and the collections. The Art Library also has art publications for you to browse at your leisure and free internet access.

The gallery offers free adult and family events throughout the year, see the What’s On section to find out more.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                             The gallery can be hired for corporate events and meetings and full details scan be found in the Gallery Hire section.

The old Museum and Art Gallery used to share a building in Lichfield Street with the Central Library. Once the art gallery moved to its new home, the Museum integrated with the Library Service.

One of the aims of The New Art Gallery Walsall was to involve artist’s right from the beginning of the project. Artists were appointed to record the building process and others have contributed to the design. Richard Wentworth created a special work for the public space outside the gallery and Catherine Yass produced a film which was shown in the Window Box. You can find out more about how the gallery was constructed and who was involved by visiting the Art Library on the mezzanine level in the gallery.

The gallery is funded by Walsall Council and receives regular funding from Arts Council England. The gallery also generate income from commercial activity, conferences and hires, membership, donations, grants from trust and foundations and sponsorship. Make a donation today and contribute to the projects and education work at the gallery.

The gallery and its staff are managed by Walsall Council with the gallery team based in offices at the gallery. The gallery also has a trust, Walsall Museums and Art Galleries Development Trust, registered charity number 1064056.

The gallery is funded by Walsall Council and the Arts Council England and this core funding subsidises free admission. Free admission came to the fore in the 2001 as the DCMS supported the campaign for all national museums to have free admission. This policy enables everyone to have access to culture and to the nation’s art collections.

The Garman Ryan Collection was donated to the Borough in 1972 by Lady Kathleen Garman. It consists of 365 works of art, over a third of them being three-dimensional works. Two remarkable women created this collection: Kathleen Garman, lover and later wife of artist Jacob Epstein, and her life-long friend Sally Ryan, a talented sculptor.

Kathleen Garman lived and grew up in Oakeswell Hall, Wednesbury just a few miles from Walsall.

Kathleen left the area and moved to London but made regular visits to Walsall and the Black Country. She was Sir Jacob Epstein’s long time mistress and eventually they married, when he died she was the sole beneficiary of his private art collection. Much of the collection was sold but Kathleen started her own collection with her friend, sculptor Sally Ryan, together, they formed an art collection that is intimate, adventurous and eclectic, reflecting their wide-ranging tastes from many different cultures and periods around the world. In later life Kathleen was looking to give her collection a more permanent home and considered the old family home, Oakeswell Hall, unfortunately the hall was about to be demolished and so she came to Walsall and gifted the collection to Walsall Council. 

The old Museum and Art Gallery in Lichfield Street housed the collection for many years but it was apparent these amazing works of art needed more space and special conditions. The Garman Ryan collection was the main impetus for the new gallery building we now see in Gallery Square which took ten years to plan and five years to build.

If you are able to visit the gallery in person, we are open 10am-5pm Monday to Saturday and 11am-4pm on Sunday, the Garman Ryan Collection is on Floors 1 and 2.  There is a free introductory talk about the collection every Wednesday and Saturday at 1pm which lasts about 15 minutes. You can also visit the Art Library on the mezzanine level and find out more about the history of the gallery and all the collections. You can search information on this website or make an appointment to see the archive with a librarian.

There is a learning programme for educational groups school groups which links to the collections and temporary exhibitions, we also offer bespoke curator talks to private groups that can be booked in advance.

The book A Shared Vision is all about the collection and can be purchased from the Gallery Shop £15 paperback and £25 hardback.

The gallery has lots offer, the core art collection, the Garman Ryan Collection is on Floors 1 and 2  and has works by world famous artists including Van Gogh, Constable, Turner, Picasso and Matisse.  Disco, the family gallery on the ground floor is a safe space for children and families to explore art together. On floors 3 an 4 are world class exhibition spaces showing works in a range of different media by both established and emerging artists.

Decisions are made by the gallery Programming Team which consists of the Director, Exhibition and Collections Curators, Education and Audience Development Curators and marketing staff. The programme consists of exhibitions, artists’ projects and residencies, education, audience development and events programme.

The exhibition programme is selected partly from artist proposals, some exhibitions are part of touring projects and some exhibitions are initiated by the gallery.

Find out more about opportunities at the gallery and how to submit a proposal to the gallery, or Whats On for past, present and future exhibitions and artist projects.

There are approximately 40 staff working at the gallery nearly half of which are Gallery Assistants, who work on the gallery floors and reception. The rest of the team is made up of Exhibitions, Collections and Education Curators and a Marketing, Operations, Technical and Finance team.