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2023 marks one hundred years of Towner! Originally established with a bequest from John Chisholm Towner in 1920, the gallery was first homed in Manor Gardens, adjacent to Gildredge Park in the Old Town area of Eastbourne. Opening there in 1923, it closed when the building was sold in 2005. In 2009, we re-opened in our current location - a purpose-built facility adjacent to the Congress Theatre, near Eastbourne's seafront.

TOWNER 100 is a series of major exhibitions which will include celebrations of the Towner Collection past and present, the world’s leading prize for contemporary art coming to Sussex for the first time, and a large-scale presentation of one of the UK’s best loved sculptors. As well as a retrospective of the past 100 years of Towner, these exhibitions also look to the next 100, asking what a museum and gallery can be, and who it is for.

Towner Collection comprises over 5000 artworks that individually and collectively reflect and reveal the history of Towner as a public art gallery in Eastbourne since 1923. Sited in Sussex, the Collection features many landscapes and seascapes that draw inspiration from this unique location. From 1923, it was housed inside Towner’s first home, an 18th century manor house, which shaped it for almost 90 years. In 2009 Towner moved into a purpose-built modernist style gallery where we celebrate its centenary. The Living Collection will consider Towner’s broad and varied history of collecting and exhibiting over the past one hundred years through a selection of paintings, prints and artefacts. This celebratory display offers Towner and its communities the occasion to look back to appreciate the past and the opportunity to look forward, engaging with the present as we envision its future. Expect to see artists such as Eric Ravilious, Edward Wadsworth, Vanessa Bell, Gertrude Hermes, William Gear and Greta Dellean.

100 years on from when Towner Collection began, there is a moment to reflect on what an art collection is, who it is for, and what it says about a town, a community or a time period. Taking inspiration from our unique coastal location where the English Channel meets the South Downs, Unseen will draw on these themes and include painting, moving images, prints, illustration, sculpture, installation and photography. It will bring together key works from the Collection, many of which are previously unseen, having not yet been displayed since their acquisition. Artists featured include Elizabeth Price, Helen Cammock, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Tom Hammick, Michael Rakowitz, Roland Jarvis, Rachel Jones, David Nash and Clare Woods. 

This exhibition, which has garnered rave reviews across the country after visits to Wakefield, Edinburgh and St Ives, will display some of Hepworth’s most celebrated sculptures including the modern abstract carving that launched her career in the 1920s and 1930s, her iconic strung sculptures of the 1940s and 1950s, and large-scale bronze and carved sculptures from later in her career. Life and Art will see key loans from national public collections shown alongside works from private collections that have not been on public display since the 1970s, as well as rarely seen drawings, paintings and fabric designs. The exhibition will be themed around Hepworth's broader cultural interests in music, dance, theatre, politics and literature, exploring these and encouraging new interpretations and presentations of her work.

Towner Eastbourne will host the Turner Prize, the world’s leading prize for contemporary art, as the centrepiece of our centenary celebrations. One of the best-known prizes for the visual arts in the world, the Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art.  Established in 1984, the Prize is awarded to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the previous twelve months. The announcement of the winner of the Turner Prize will take place on 5 December 2023. The Turner Prize winner will be awarded £25,000 with £10,000 awarded to the other shortlisted artists. With support from Eastbourne Borough Council and East Sussex County Council, the Turner Prize will bring transformative cultural and social experiences for visitors and residents.

Play Interact Explore is an exhibition of interactive artworks and resources  developed in collaboration with local community groups. This lively, exciting and curiosity-filled space will be designed to support and encourage visitors of all types to take part in playful exploration and critical thought through making.  

Leap Then Look (LTL) create artworks, participatory projects and events which explore the possibilities of play, collaboration and material exploration in cross-disciplinary art practice.  Four community groups - West Rise Junior School, Arts in Mind, Downs View Special School and the Brighton and Hove Foster Service - have been working directly with LTL through a series of interactive workshops, designing and testing artworks in a collaborative process leading to the creation of the exhibition. The exhibition will be activated by a public programme of workshops and by four associate artists who will use the space to create their own work and encourage others to join them.

Throughout 2023 we will be partnering with iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) for the third and final year of Future Collect, a project that will reimagine the future of public collections to better reflect our culturally diverse society.

Each year this partnership project commissions a new work by an artist of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern or Asian heritage living and working in the UK. The work will be collected and exhibited by three major British institutions (previously Manchester City Art Gallery and Hepworth Wakefield). The exhibition will be supported with a public programme of events and engagement activities contributing to a wider public debate on collections and whose heritage is being preserved.

The project also supports significant curatorial development in the form of a paid Curatorial Trainee (Hollie Douglas), who will have opportunities to develop essential skills needed for her career during their time working between Towner and iniva.
 
Future Collect is generously supported by Art Fund, Arts Council England and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.