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Headlines March and April 2026 4 People Watching Until 10th May, Dorset Museum and Art Gallery (DM&AG) will be showing People Watching , a collection of British portraiture, in a collaboration with the Ingram Collection. The Ingram Collection is one of the largest publicly accessible collections of modern British art in the UK. Founded in 2002 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Chris Ingram, the majority of the collection was donated by Chris himself in 2016 to the Ingram Art Foundation. The organisation was established and funded to assist in ful fi lling Chris’s ambition to make modern and contemporary art widely available for public display. The collection now spans over 100 years of British art and includes over 600 artworks. Many of these are by some of the most important British artists of the twentieth century, and by focusing on these it has allowed DM&AG to draw on its own important collection of modern British art. The collection's main focus is on the art movements that developed in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, with a particularly strong presence of modern British sculpture. Within the work that the curators have selected for this show is a very pleasing thread of Dorset artists that were active during this period, as both artists and sitters. It grounds the exhibition in Dorset and makes it particularly relevant to its audience. The stand-out names of Thomas Hardy and Elisabeth Frink inevitably feature but alongside some of Dorset’s lesser known talents. In Dorset during this time there were creative hot spots of artists, writers, musicians and actors, socialising and feeding off one another's creativity. The writer Sylvia Townsend Warner features both in a photographic portrait by Cecil Beaton as well as with a collage she created, which has never before been on public display. Francis Newbery and Elsie Barling both depict the musicians David Brynley and Norman Notley, and there are also paintings by lesser known female members of large creative families, Winifred Nicholson and Gertrude Powys. With sections of the exhibition dedicated to subjects such as Leisure and Play, Family and Relationships, People at Work, and Beyond the Real, the exhibition allows us to deep dive into different narratives. A self- portraits section explores how modern and contemporary artists portray themselves, re fl ecting on self-perception and the role of self examination in their creative process. It features a particularly captivating self- portrait of the abstract modernist Terry Frost and a woodcut by the Bloomsbury Group’s Roger Fry, printed by fellow members Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Well known artists Barbara Hepworth, Augustus John and an early representational piece by Bridget Riley highlight the calibre of work in this exhibition, but they’re shown alongside more contemporary pieces and later acquisitions to the Ingram Collection. It boasts a growing number of works by young and emerging artists since establishing the Ingram Prize, an annual purchase prize created to celebrate and support the work and early careers of UK art school graduates, demonstrating its dedication and commitment to the UK art scene. Ingram Collection Director Jo Baring says: “This exhibition is a celebration of the power and versatility of portraiture – how it can reveal, conceal, question and transform. People Watching offers a unique opportunity to experience modern British art through the lens of the human face, both familiar and fantastical.” This absorbing exhibition isn’t just for portrait lovers but also for those lovers of twentieth century art, human connections, relationships and history in general. Suzy Rushbrook VIOLET MADELINE JOSETTE JONES ‘JAMES NORTHOVER’ LUCY JONES ‘A HANDFUL OF TEARS’ 31 January - 10 May: Dorset Museum & Art Gallery, High West Street, DORCHESTER, DT1 1XA. 10am - 5pm. dorsetmuseum.org