Discovering Darlington Borough Art Collection

Darlington Borough Art Collection contains works donated to, bought by, or loaned to Darlington Borough Council for the public over many years.   We manage access to Darlington Borough Art Collection, exhibit works from it in Darlington and periodically loan works from it to galleries and museums elsewhere in England for exhibition.  

Darlington Borough Council is a partner of Art UK, which means that digital images of the majority of works in Darlington Borough Art Collection can be viewed on line at Art UK | Discover Artworks.  If you click on the images of artworks in the collection you can discover further information on each work, where this is available, e.g. the artists name, their dates, the accession number of the work, the medium of the work, its size, and date.  

We also offer artists and groups exhibiting their own work in the Art Gallery at Darlington Library an opportunity to pick works from the Borough Art Collection for display alongside their own exhibitions.  So, if you pop into view exhibitions in the Art Gallery at Darlington Library, you will normally see a small number of different original works from Darlington Borough Collection on display alongside each new exhibition.

Darlington Borough Council does not currently allocate budget to purchase works for the Borough Art Collection, however we sometimes accept donations of works into the collection in line with our collections policy, the works must either be of particular significance to Darlington borough (e.g. depicting events, people or locations of particular significance to Darlington), or be works by known artists of significant reputation which will strengthen this public collection.

If you would like to find out more about Darlington Borough Art Collection or view an original work within it, please contact stephen.wiper@darlington.gov.uk.  If you would like to view an original work in the collection let us know the artists name, title and accession number of each work you want to see, and once you have been in touch we will contact you to arrange an appointment to view those works which are available at Darlington Library during standard opening hours, see Darlington Library – Darlington Library – Darlington Libraries.

There over five hundred works in Darlington Borough Art Collection, including works in ceramic, collage, drawings, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture, and textiles, and in many different styles.  We hope you’ll enjoy finding out more about your collection through the Art UK website.