Once again the Society is holding an exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery which will open on October 29th this year. An exhibition celebrating one hundred and three years of art may seem a little odd but it is quite natural in the context of the years since our Centenary Exhibition in 2019. Last year our exhibition celebrated coming out into the light after the COVID lock downs. This year celebrates a sort of return to normality and it feels right to celebrate that too.
Reaching a landmark anniversary like our centenary is always likely to create a sense of anti-climax after the celebrations end. However, COVID restrictions immediately threw up new challenges for the Society in 2020. We had to find new ways to communicate and continue our programme of events. Zoom offered a wonderful answer to our problems and proved to be a great success. The sense of a post-centenary anti-climax was completely squashed.
This year our exhibition celebrates our Society continuing to flourish. The balance between professional and gifted amateur artists has been restored. Our Society was born out of Wolverhampton School of Art and I am pleased to say we are re-establishing the links with Wolverhampton University Faculty of the Arts. This year will mark the third that the Society has presented prizes at the University Degree Ceremony. All this has generated a new purpose to continue to share our art making with the wider community of Wolverhampton. It is why celebrating one hundred and three years of a commitment to art in our next exhibition is very relevant, not only to the Society, but to the wider art scene of Wolverhampton and the Midlands.
Keith Oram President.
Image from last year’s Exhibition: Captured by Sarah Stokes