Tuesday 2 November is wellbeing day at Lancaster City Museum!

Everyone welcome, free entry.
Drop in – no booking required

10am – 3pm
Meet HARRI the NHS health and wellbeing engagement bus, and get advice on a range of issues

12pm – 3pm
Take part in drop in landscape sketching for wellbeing with artist Joseph Travis

10am – 5pm
Experience our latest art exhibition ‘Reginald Aspinwall: a troubled landscape’ and try slow looking for wellbeing.

Reginald Aspinwall was a brilliant painter. He captured nature’s beauty in oil and watercolour, winning prizes for his work. But he also struggled with addiction, poverty and ill health, eventually dying in Lancaster County Asylum in 1921. This exhibition explores his life and art, and provides opportunities for you to improve your wellbeing through engaging with art and nature.

The wellbeing day is open to everyone, free to participate in and you can dip into activities as you like. No need to pre-book.

This activity has been supported by the Harris Museum Art Gallery & Library thanks to their National Lottery Heritage Fund grant.

Image: Cumulus Clouds: Haymaking
Reginald Aspinwall (1858-1921) 

REGINALD ASPINWALL: a troubled landscape

24 September – 7 November

Location: Lancaster City Museum

Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm.

This exhibition is the first to open with several  loans from the Harris on display as we close for the Harris Your Place project. 

Everyone welcome, free entry.
Drop in – no booking required

A new exhibition at Lancaster City Museum will provide the opportunity to delve into the life and work of an artist who took inspiration from the district’s landscapes and breath-taking countryside.

‘Reginald Aspinwall: a troubled landscape’ takes place from September 24 to November 7 and explores the works of Reginald Aspinwall, who was born in Preston but lived in Lancaster for much of his life.

The exhibition will bring together paintings from museums in both cities – the Harris Museum Art Gallery & Library in Preston will soon be undergoing a major renovation and has loaned paintings from its collection so they can be viewed while this work takes place.

When combined with the City Museum’s own collection, 50 paintings spanning Aspinwall’s life and career will be on show.

Aspinwall was born in Preston in 1855, moving to Lancaster in the 1870s to study art.

A prolific artist, he took inspiration from nature and the collection includes paintings of Morecambe Bay, Caton, Heysham and Halton and countryside around the Lancaster district, in addition to further afield.

However, his talent was curtailed by his addiction to alcohol and the last few years of his life were marked by financial hardship, which forced him into Lancaster Workhouse.

In 1920 he was moved to Lancaster Moor Hospital, where he died in 1921. He is buried in Lancaster Cemetery.

The exhibition will also examine this aspect of his life and how it affected his painting.

For more information visit Visitlancaster.org.uk/museums, the museum’s Facebook page @Lancastercitymuseum or Instagram @lancastercitymuseums.

REGINALD ASPINWALL: a troubled landscape: Lancaster City Museum