Oil paintings in public ownership in Plymouth & Torbay

This catalogue brings together some 1,200 oil paintings from 16 publicly-owned collections across Plymouth and Torbay, a borough of Devon spanning the towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. The largest collection is that of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery with over 900 paintings spanning the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries. Torre Abbey boasts another large and important collection particularly rich in nineteenth-century works that reflect the taste of Torquay's genteel families of the period. The collections of Plymouth and Torbay include many works by prominent local artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Luny, James Northcote, William Widgery, and the contemporary Robert Lenkiewicz. The collections are mixed and varied, inspired by Devon's rich and rugged coastal landscapes and the people who have inhabited them.