FAQs
View our FAQs on the upcoming plans for the Graves Gallery and the city's art collection.
View the FAQs
The Graves Gallery will close its doors above the Central Library this autumn ahead of a move to an interim new home in the Heart of the City in 2027. The gallery will close on Saturday 31 October in order for Sheffield City Council to undertake investigative work on the heating system in some parts of the building and prepare for a future major redevelopment. Work is almost complete on a feasibility study which will inform plans to safeguard the future of this landmark building and secure the eventual return of the gallery to its original home.
In spring this year, the Graves Gallery had to close most of its display spaces following a significant failure in the building’s heating system. While the collection was unharmed, several artworks were removed to ensure their safety and to enable Sheffield City Council to undertake investigative work. Sadly, these investigations have determined that the existing heating system that serves the Graves Gallery cannot be repaired, meaning the Gallery will close at the end of October. The Central Library and Library Theatre will remain open within the lower floors of the building, where there are alternative heating options available.
To ensure the people of Sheffield and visitors to the city can continue to enjoy the city’s art collection – one of the strongest regional collections in the North – Sheffield Museums and Sheffield City Council have been working to find a new interim home for the collection. Visitors will once again be able to see highlights from the collection when the Graves Gallery reopens in a new city centre location in 2027.
The art collection is expected to remain in this temporary location until the major redevelopment of the Graves Gallery and Central Library building is complete and it returns to its Surrey Street home. The transformation of the Graves Gallery, and the wider Surrey Street building, is identified as a key opportunity in Sheffield City Council’s Culture Strategy and recognises the huge potential of art and culture to drive growth in the city. As part of the current feasibility study, an options appraisal is being undertaken to determine the best future for the building and the services it houses.
As part of a major transformation project at this scale, the Graves Gallery and the Central Library would need to vacate the building for the redevelopment to take place. With the Graves Gallery’s departure brought forward, Sheffield Museums and Sheffield City Council are committed to ensuring the city’s art collection remains available to everyone and are working to ready a new, interim gallery space, which can open to the public next year.
Thanks to the generosity of city philanthropist, J.G. Graves and the vision of the Corporation of Sheffield (now Sheffield City Council), the Graves Gallery first opened in 1934 with the ambition to showcase a well-chosen, nationally important collection of great art, available to all. The collection that it became home to has gone on to be known as one of the finest regional holdings in the UK, featuring work by JMW Turner, Edward Burne-Jones, John Singer Sargent, Paul Cezanne, Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Claudette Johnson, Grayson Perry, Hew Locke and Helen Chadwick. Since first opening, the gallery has ensured that the people of Sheffield and South Yorkshire can enjoy great art on their doorstep, showcasing this wonderful collection and celebrating Sheffield’s creative talent alongside exhibitions of work by artists from Kandinsky and Picasso to Paula Rego and Andy Warhol.
Kim Streets, Chief Executive at Sheffield Museums, said:
“For almost a century, the Graves Gallery has been an oasis of inspiration. As custodians of the city’s art collection, we work to ensure the collection is here for the people of Sheffield’s to enjoy, inspiring new ideas and greater understanding, and sparking their own creativity. As custodians, we are also charged with safeguarding it for the future generations and, over the past few years, we’ve worked closely with Sheffield City Council to navigate the challenges the aging building has presented. However, the failure of the Gallery’s heating system means we can no longer provide a welcoming space in the building going forward for staff and visitors, or secure the necessary environmental conditions required to keep the collection safe in the long term. As such we have no option but to move the collection elsewhere for now.
“Art for everyone is at the heart of a vibrant thriving city, helping people connect with new ideas, each other and the world around them, and inspiring Sheffield’s next generations of creators, makers and innovators. This is why we’ve been working with Sheffield City Council to identify a new location to showcase the collection, so the people of Sheffield can continue to enjoy and find inspiration in it. We look forward to sharing more details of the interim Graves Gallery location soon, and welcoming visitors to the new space next year.
“As always, our foremost priority is securing the long-term future of the gallery in its rightful home, on Surrey Street. Our ambition is to work with the City Council to fully realise the huge potential of the city’s art collection and support the transformation of the building into a leading destination for the city, the region and beyond.
“The future, transformed Graves Gallery will help showcase Sheffield’s ambition on a national stage, serving the people of Sheffield through meaningful, inspirational experiences, while driving tourism and putting culture at the heart of a reimagined city centre. The long-term transformation of this landmark building represents a huge opportunity for Sheffield and we look forward to finalising these plans with the City Council.”
Kirstie Hamilton, Director of Programmes at Sheffield Museums, said:
“Sheffield’s nationally significant art collection is wide-ranging, surprising and much-loved. The people we welcome regularly tell us how impressed they are by the breadth and quality of the works on display, from the awe-inspiring Turner and Cezanne’s beautiful garden, right through to the very of best of Sheffield talent that the collection celebrates, from the great John Hoyland to the gifted artists practicing in the city today.
“Most importantly, visitors tell us how the artworks speak to their lives today, in so many ways – offering inspiration and moments of reflection, bringing joy and comfort, or revealing connections that mirror their own experiences or help them understand those of others.
“Over the last five years, funding from the Ampersand Foundation has enabled us to demonstrate the profound power of the collection to help people make sense of the world they live in and find beauty in it. During that time, we’ve worked with artists, young people and communities to share more of the collection and bring new insights and perspectives to it, and the response has been incredible.
“The new interim gallery will ensure that the people of Sheffield, and visitors to the city alike, can continue to find meaningful connections as we work towards returning the collection to its original home. The transformation of the Graves Gallery and Central Library building will allow us to harness the huge potential of the collection, bring world-class art to Sheffield and inspire creativity in people young and old.”
Alongside the opening of the temporary Graves Gallery, work has also been underway to ensure the recently announced British Art Show 10 multi-site exhibition will go ahead in autumn 2027 as planned. The artworks which were originally to be shown in the Graves Gallery will now be displayed in additional temporary exhibition space at the Millennium Gallery.
Councillor Fran Belbin, Leader of Sheffield City Council, said:
“The transformation of this much-loved building is one of the most significant cultural opportunities Sheffield has seen for many years.
"Central Library, Graves Gallery and the City Archives are among the city's most important public assets. They tell Sheffield's story, provide opportunities to learn and discover, and connect people with our heritage.
"In line with the ambition within our Culture Strategy, we now have a unique opportunity to transform these services for the future, creating a landmark destination that is more accessible, more welcoming and able to offer even more for residents, families, visitors and communities across Sheffield.
"Our ambition is not simply to restore an iconic building, but to unlock its full potential and secure its future for generations to come.
“We are looking forward to sharing the findings of the 18-month feasibility study and setting out the preferred option for the future of this much-loved building.”
About the Graves Gallery
The Graves Gallery and Central Library building officially opened on 5 July 1934 and quickly became an iconic feature in Sheffield’s cityscape. For over 90 years, the gallery has provided a beautiful art-deco home to Sheffield’s remarkable visual art collection, hosting exhibitions showcasing the work of internationally renowned artists and celebrating Sheffield’s homegrown creative talents.
In 2021, the gallery began a major five-year programme of refurbishment and redisplay generously supported by the Ampersand Foundation. Walls were re-cladded in three of the main galleries, which had remained largely unchanged since the gallery first opened, and redecoration breathed new life into the display spaces. The project saw expert conservation of hundreds of collection highlights and a programme of change which saw around of the gallery redisplayed each year. Funding from the Ampersand Foundation also supported collaborations bringing new perspectives to the collection and supported exhibitions drawn from the collection in schools curated by young people.
About Sheffield’s art collection
Sheffield’s art collection numbers 8,000 items and reflects over 150 years of dedicated, expert collecting. The collection is founded on bequests by Sheffield businessmen and philanthropists John Newton Mappin (1800-1883) and John George Graves (1865-1945), who shared the belief that Sheffield and its people deserved a nationally important art collection.
Spanning paintings, watercolours, prints, drawings, sculpture, photographs, installations and digital artworks, the city’s collection includes a significant proportion of British and European Art from the 16th century to the present day. It features work by internationally recognised artists such as JMW Turner, Edward Burne-Jones, John Singer Sargent, Paul Cezanne, Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Claudette Johnson, Grayson Perry, Hew Locke and Helen Chadwick.
One of the collection’s key strengths is Sheffield’s holding of 20th century Modern British artworks, recognised as one of the strongest regional collections in the North, featuring artworks by Frank Auerbach, Vanessa Bell, David Bomberg, Gwen John and Stanley Spencer. Sheffield is also home to one of the most significant public collections and exhibition histories relating to the BLK Art Group, a group of politically engaged Black British artists who used art to challenge racism, inequality and exclusion in UK’s cultural institutions. Highlights include artworks by Eddie Chambers, Claudette Johnson, Keith Piper, Donald Rodney and Marlene Smith.
Today, Sheffield Museums continues to work collaboratively to grow the city’s collection to reflect the best of contemporary art practice. Recent acquisitions include artworks by Rene Matić, Lubna Chowdhury, Sean Scully, Liliane Tomasko, Mark Wallinger and Dan Holdsworth.
