ABOUT BARN GALLERIES

BARN GALLERIES is a family business founded in 1991 with our first exhibition, ARTSPACE. The distinctive rural setting of our ancient barns and gardens attract over 6000 visitors every year.  BARN GALLERIES came about as a result of a passion for sculpture shared by Bridget & Ian Fraser, Lucy Irvine joined in 1995 as creative and artistic director.

Excellence has always been our aim: we only show work by professional working artists. We aim to encourage artists’ careers and to help clients to build informed collections of contemporary work. We show an exciting mix of established artists alongside promising graduates. We look for excellence and energy in artwork: it’s as simple and as difficult as that.

ARTSPACE in May, biennial from 2012, is our major event but we host a growing, vibrant programme of exhibitions and cultural events. Collect in the country – studio ceramics, handcrafted Indian textiles, Daler Rowney awards, retrospective for the renowned William Newland - all hosted by BARN GALLERIES.

We offer: opera nights, poetry readings, workshops for adults and children and en plein air painting groups enjoy days here. The Free Range Poets meet monthly; Summer Living charity fair in June; barn dances; film & television shoots –
We continue to expand our repertoire and become more ambitious every year.

Barn Galleries founded ARTSPACE INDIA in 2000 together with Bobbi and Mitu Mukerjee. With the assistance of The British Council, several ARTSPACE artists enjoyed cultural exchanges which continued until 2010.

Barn Galleries has curated many visual arts events elsewhere. For many years we curated the Riverside Gallery at the Henley Festival. Here we introduced large scale sculpture for the lawns, poetry to the programme, ran workshops for children and instigated the free of charge open morning for everyone. Barn Galleries also curated Sculpture Gardens for the Cookham Festival in the grounds of the John Lewis Partnership’s Odney Club, Cookham. We annually take space at London Art Fairs

The barns, built 1705-1715, surround the central farmyard and are typical of timbered Berkshire barns used for threshing and storage of grain harvest. Very few such barns now exist in their original state. The timbers may have come from the shipyard at Wargrave and one old section of timber threshing floor remains. High doors to north allowed laden wagons to enter then exit, unladen, via the low doors to south. The flint barn housed carthorses with a sloping cobbled floor to keep cobbles dry for horses and a hay loft above. Original smithy now demolished. A full history of these barns is available

Our flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep graze happily, chickens, ducks, cats and dogs carry on with their days unperturbed by our many visitors.

Barn Galleries is only open to visitors for exhibitions. Do sign up for our mailing list to keep up to date with our events. They will delight and excite.

Bridget Fraser  Director Barn Galleries & ARTSPACE
Lucy Irvine  Assistant Director & Creative Director ARTSPACE.