Spring Makers’ Fair at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Saturday 9 May 2026, 10am – 4pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Enjoy browsing a range of stalls dotted around the Art Gallery and Museum offering a broad selection of unique and exquisite gift opportunities your loved ones – or yourself!
Little Al’s Café at the Balcony will be open for drinks and homemade food, and you can visit exhibition John Singer Sargent: an American in Worcestershire (tickets are required for this exhibition) while you’re here.
Free entry. Plan your visit to Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum.
Would you like a stall?
We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with event organiser Tracey Ayre at tracey.ayre@worcester.gov.uk.
Spotlight Talk | Landmarks with David Birtwhistle
Saturday 14 March 2026, 11am – 12noon | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Artist David Birtwhistle takes us through his working processes in this Spotlight Talk.
Hear about his production methods and choice of materials, as well as how the exhibition David Birtwhistle: A Retrospective came together at the Art Gallery and Museum.
This will be an insight into his artistic practice, and you’ll have the chance to ask David about his working methods and choice of subjects.
The talk will end with a walk-through of his free-to-visit exhibition currently on show at the Art Gallery and Museum.
£10 for the talk.
Family | Roar-some Bags of Fun
Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays) | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Have roar-some fun at the Art Gallery and Museum this February!🦕
Pick up an activity bag and get creative in the Activity Space during the school holiday. Here’s what you’ll be able to get up to:
➡️Make a pop-up dinosaur in its very own paper-plate egg
➡️Create your own dinosaur matching game
➡️Make your own mini palaeontologist notebook
The Art Gallery and Museum is fully equipped for young creatives to get going on their making. Each activity bag has multiple themed activities inside along with colouring and puzzle sheets.
£2.50, purchase your activity bags from the Art Gallery and Museum shop.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm, and Sunday 10am – 3pm.
Free entry to the Art Gallery and Museum (closed Mondays). Plan your visit.
More dino fun in February:
Get Arty: Roar-some Makes – Saturday 14, Wednesday 18, Friday 20 February, 10.30 – 11.30am. Find out more.
Family Trail | Egg-splorers: Dino Discovery Trail – Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays), £1. Find out more.
Family Trail | Egg-splorers: Dino Discovery Trail
Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays) | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
This February half-term holiday is perfectly prehistoric!🦕
Follow a fun family trail and become a dino detective. Search for 8 hidden eggs around the museum as you reveal the dinosaurs hidden inside each mysterious egg… what will you find?🪺
£1, purchase your trail from the Art Gallery and Museum shop.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm, and Sunday 10am – 3pm.
Free entry to the Art Gallery and Museum (closed Mondays). Plan your visit.
More dino fun in February:
Get Arty: Roar-some Makes – Saturday 14, Wednesday 18, Friday 20 February, 10.30 – 11.30am. Find out more.
Roar-some Bags of Fun – Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays), £2.50. Find out more.
Family Fun | Get Arty: Roar-some Makes
Saturday 14, Wednesday 18, Friday 20 February 2026, 10.30 – 11.30am | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Come and get arty this February half-term holiday at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum!
Children will be able to make a roar-some clay creation – will it be a dino egg, footprint or a fossil?🦖
To go with it, make a fantastic prehistoric companion to take home, a 3D cardboard dinosaur.
And design collagraph prints inspired by dinosaurs and fossils too!
Get Arty is on: Saturday 14 February, Wednesday 18 February, Friday 20 February at 10.30 – 11.30am.
£5.50 per child. A parent or carer must stay during the session. Free entry to the Art Gallery and Museum.
More dino fun in February:
Family Trail | Egg-splorers: Dino Discovery Trail – Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays), £1. Find out more.
Roar-some Bags of Fun – Saturday 14 February – Sunday 22 February 2026 (closed Mondays), £2.50. Find out more.
The High Dosage Tour of Steward’s Chemist Shop
First Friday of the month, 11 – 11.30am | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Step inside the fantastic Steward’s Chemist Shop at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum and discover its history…
Take the High Dosage tour – with the chance to see items that are not usually on display – in the hidden realm behind the Dispensing Screen.🧪
What secrets does the Victorian Chemist’s Shop hold? Come and find out!
The display was set up after the closure of Steward’s Chemist Shop at 27 High Street, when the entire shop along with the fixtures and fittings were purchased in 1974 and transported to the museum to be redisplayed.
£4.50 for the talk; book now! Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Please note that in April, the chemist shop will be open on Friday 10 April (the Art Gallery and Museum is closed on Friday 3 April due to Good Friday).
Spotlight Talk | Skin. John Singer Sargent and the scandal of Madame X
Saturday 23 May 2026, 11am – 12noon | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
By 1883 John Singer Sargent was establishing what would become a glittering career as the go-to portrait painter of high society. As a young artist in Paris he implored a beautiful socialite to allow him to paint her. Over the following year Sargent laboured over what he later considered to be his masterpiece, the portrait of Virginie Gautreau. The painting, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884, shocked its viewers with its connotations of sexual impropriety, and the breaking of class taboos in the artificial colouration of his subject’s skin. It ruined Virginie’s reputation and ended Sargent’s career in Paris, but he would quickly create a new life in England as the portrait painter of the era, creating visions of beauty and swaggering privilege.
In his second talk for Worcester’s exhibition on Sargent’s work, art historian Justin Reay discusses Sargent’s approach to painting Virginie Gautreau, including how the sexuality of the artist played a role in this portrait; he describes the public response to the painting now known as ‘Madame X’ and the reasons for the scandal which ensued, and discusses how the painting arose from the self-identity of the sitter which resonates today with modern society’s fascination with how we recreate ourselves as we wish to be seen.
If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking is available online. There are a variety of admission options to choose from. The rest of the Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit as usual.
Spotlight Talk | John Singer Sargent: landscapes, low life and high society
Saturday 25 April 2026, 11am – 12noon | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
In this talk, given in the context of the exhibition of Worcester’s collection of Sargent’s drawings, art historian Justin Reay explores the artist’s approach to his subjects, his use of light and colour, his unusual composition, and his significance as a painter who engages us with the person or the scene depicted.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was born to American parents in Italy, travelled extensively in Europe and the USA throughout his life, established a successful career as a portrait painter in Paris and London, and became a celebrated and influential artist. Although living for many years in London, based in James McNeil Whistler’s former studio in Chelsea, Sargent frequently stayed with friends in Worcestershire and Oxfordshire, walking the hills and meadows around Broadway, painting the upper Thames, the Avon and the Cotswold countryside as well as informal paintings of family and friends.
He is perhaps best known for his compelling, often sumptuous portraits of British and American high society figures and celebrities, showing the character as well as the likeness of his sitters, but his figurative work includes the genre of real life, depictions of ordinary people at work to whom he gives the same degree of dignity. His landscapes and architectural scenes, in oil and watercolour, are notable for their attention to detail, interesting composition and an increasingly free mark-making. His style developed from initial formality towards Impressionism, and finally to a more relaxed, painterly depiction, even for portraits, and his landscapes achieve, at their best, a languid romanticism.
If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking is available online. There are a variety of admission options to choose from. The rest of the Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit as usual.
About Justin
Justin Reay FSA FRHistS
Retiring from a long career in business in 2001, Justin studied the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oxford, for whom he became a senior academic manager at the Bodleian Library, advising research scholars, editing manuscripts and consulting on the university’s collections of maritime paintings. He is a published historian and a qualified teacher. He delivered courses in the university’s international residential programmes, and tutors the History of Art and Classical Studies for private students and colleges in Oxford.
Justin is an Accredited Lecturer for The Arts Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Walpole Society.