To See & Do
Art Galleries in Cornwall
Read our article about Cornwall's art galleries from Truro to Lands End.
Cornwall is renowned for drawing generations of artists to live and work, from the Victorians to contemporary, inspired by the light, the landscape and the lives of those that make their living from the land and sea. Every harbour and town is filled with galleries, so you are never far from looking at something, but we’ve collated a list of ten of our favourites. From contemporary work to the Cornish greats, sculptures to en plein air paintings, the modern to Victorian, and new and up-coming, these galleries in Cornwall are worth a visit.
Tate St Ives
A former gas building turned art gallery, Tate St Ives is on the beach at Porthmeor within easy walking distance of the town centre. Home to a rooftop café / restaurant with views across the beach and town towards the harbour, ten galleries show a rotating selection from the permanent collection of works that include iconic 20th century artists who lived and worked in the town, like Patrick Heron, Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. The new extension that opened in 2017 hosts temporary exhibitions, which is currently a retrospective on surrealist painter Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds. Colquhoun lived and worked in West Penwith; on her death her estate passed to Tate and the National Trust. This is the first showing of this number of her works at once, and in this curation one room focuses on her connection to the Cornish landscape. The exhibition then moves to Tate Britain from May with a new focus on surrealism.
Open year round, Monday to Sunday 10.00–17.20, £13 (free for members and local pass holders)
Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden
Also under the management of Tate is the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden, a short walk away from Tate St Ives, and close to the town centre. Hepworth worked in the Trewyn studios from 1949 until her death in a studio fire in 1975. The family passed the studio to Tate and visitors can now see Hepworth’s studio as she left it, explore the Hepworth Museum, and walk in the beautiful subtropical gardens where a vast number of her sculptures sit among the careful planting. Opposite, is the Palais de Danse that Hepworth acquired in 1961 to use as a studio and workshop. Long unused, and now under Tate ownership, plans are in place for renovation, with the space used for both artists and community endeavours.
Open year round, Monday to Sunday 10.00–17.20, £8 (free for members and local pass holders)
Penlee House & Gallery
Penlee House is a both a gallery and museum, mostly focusing on the people and artists who lived and worked in west Cornwall during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with occasional temporary exhibitions by contemporary artists. The current exhibition is a response to climate change, and the new exhibition opening in May looks at how artists working in Cornwall from the 1870s to the present have been inspired by birds.
Open year round, Monday to Saturday, 10.00 - 17.00, adults £8, under 18s free.
Newlyn Art Gallery & Exchange
Two venues, one in the little working fishing harbour of Newlyn, and the other in the centre of town in Penzance, with a lovely walk along the seafront in between. Upcoming exhibitions include Janet Sainsbury, who paints portraits of 20th-century writers and artists she admires, including photographer Lee Miller, surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, and modernist writers Katherine Mansfield and Jean Rhys. Also look out for local artist Alice Kilpatrick who has painted a new series, The Dance of The Merry Maidens, inspired by a nearby stone circle.
Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10.00 - 16.00, annual pass £8, under 18s free.
Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery
Cornwall’s largest history museum has had a £2.5million revamp and rebrand (formerly the Royal Cornwall Museum) and a complete rethink of their art offering. The result is three temporary galleries - currently home to Kurt Jackson’s Biodiversity; a portrait exhibition by St Petrocs, Cornwall’s homeless charity, and a compelling look at the dying art of withy making (willow lobster pots) and a A revolving selection from the permanent collection that now hangs on the balcony. Also home to the Mineral Gallery, Nature Gallery and Heart of Cornwall gallery that explores Cornwall’s past through thousands of artefacts.
Open daily, 10.00 - 16.00, adults annual pass £10, under 18s free.
Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery - Cornish Art, History and Culture
Penwith Gallery
Penwith Society of Arts was founded in St Ives in 1949 by Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Sven Berlin and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Today the society offers a year-round programme of exhibitions by Society Members and Associates, as well as exhibitions by other artists from Cornwall, plus original works by founding members, including a Barbara Hepworth sculpture that takes pride of place in the Society’s gallery tucked behind Porthmeor Beach. Formerly an old pilchard packing factory, the maze of buildings includes three public galleries and sculpture courtyard, plus artists’ studios, a print workshop and archive.
Open Monday to Saturday 10.00 – 17.00, free.
Jackson Foundation Gallery
Kurt Jackson is one of the UK’s preeminent landscape painters and his Foundation Gallery in St Just in West Penwith is always worth a visit. Sea Flowers is his current exhibition (until August 2025) paying closer attention to the flora and fauna of the cliff edge.
Open Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00 - 13.00, and 14.00 - to 17.00, free.
Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens
22 acres of subtropical gardens overlooking Mounts Bay and St Michael’s Mount amongst which an eclectic collection of mostly modern sculpture is displayed. Works are specially commissioned and site specific. Owned by the monks of St Michael’s Mount until 1295, the estate then passed to the first of 600 years of the land under Tremenheere family stewardship. In 1997, Dr. Neil Armstrong acquired the core valley, beginning the development of Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens. Also on site is the Tremenheere Gallery which hosts temporary exhibitions across the two exhibition spaces - the current exhibition until the end of April is by the Newlyn Society of Artists: Longya. The Tremenheere kitchen serves breakfast, lunches and cakes.
Garden open daily, 10.30 - 16.30, Adults £13.50, children £6.50, family ticket £35.
Withiel Sculpture Park
17th century estate with gardens, orchard and woodland, filled with a mix of sculptures, curated by Lemon Street Gallery owner Louise Jones.
Open year round, by appointment only, free.
Kestle Barton
Kestle Barton is an ancient Cornish farmstead in the countryside on the Lizard side of the River Helford, where one of the barns has been turned into a contemporary art gallery space that opened in 2010. Each spring, summer and autumn a series of exhibitions is hosted, the first of which for 2025 is Georgia Gendall: Heat Between, a new body of work in collaboration with Kestle Barton, Wysing Arts Centre and local dairy farms. Responding to time spent on dairy farms in Cornwall and Bedfordshire over the autumn of 2024, Heat Between eavesdrops on the farm – its rhythms and the entangled relationships between humans, animals, and the land we share. Also visit the garden and little café.
Opens 12 April until November, Tuesday - Sunday 10.30 - 17.30, free (also open Bank Holidays)
Free-to-access Sculptures
Across Cornwall are sculptures in public places, including Barbara Hepworth’s 'Epidauros II' in the Malakoff gardens near the bus station in St Ives. St Ives Parish Church is home to her 'Madonna and Child'. The Drummer sculpture, created by artist and sculptor Tim Shaw, stands in the centre of Truro outside Hall for Cornwall. On the seafront at Newlyn is the Newlyn Fisherman Memorial by chair of Penwith Society of Arts, Tom Leaper. The Terence Coventry Sculpture Park near Coverack can be accessed from the South West Coast Path and is home to a rotating selection of works.
