This display includes works by major artists of both the 19th and 20th centuries.

Having recently returned from a major touring exhibition, RAMM’s pair of hospital drawings by Barbara Hepworth, Trio and Preparation, will be on display for the first time in several years.

The artist was an enthusiastic supporter of the NHS and was encouraged to visit the Princess Elizabeth Hospital in Exeter by Norman Capener, a surgeon and friend. Trio includes a portrait of Capener (centre), who was himself a painter and sculptor and maintained a long association with RAMM as a member of the Board of Governors and co-opted member of Exeter City Council. He also later became a trustee of the Friends of Exeter Museums & Art Gallery.

Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) was one of the greatest English watercolourists whose innovations opened the way for Romantic landscape artists of the 19th century. Even JMW Turner, his contemporary, is said to have remarked: “Had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved”.

RAMM is fortunate in having two of Girtin’s watercolours of the Exe estuary: Rainbow scene on the River Exe and Exeter from Trew’s Weir. Both will be shown alongside works by other notable watercolour artists such as Francis Towne and John White Abbott. More recent interpretations of Devon scenery will include Alan Cotton’s impressive oil painting, Hartland Quay, North Devon and Brian Rice’s Devon.

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