A Brief History
Bury Art Society was founded in 1949. Mr Walter Fletcher, the local M.P., accepted the position of first President. Meetings were held in a variety of venues until 1952, when, at the invitation of Mr Percy Warburton, Head of Bury School of Art, a room was acquired at the Arts & Crafts Centre, Broad Street, Bury.
TO JOIN THE GALLERY and SUBMIT PICTURES Guide:
* Click on Gallery at the top
* Click on "register" which is the 3rd option on the right
The Menu TERMS AND CONDITIONS will load.
* Scroll to the bottom and click "I agree" This loads the input registration information.
* Put in a user name eg (matisse) Then enter the password eg (art12345) again (art12345)
* Then enter your email address.
* Scroll to the bottom and press submit registration.
* After you have clicked that check your email and activate account
* Check to see if email was removed to Spam and activate account
* Now log in with your username and password use this Link
Posting pictures:
* Click My Gallery from the menu, you will see no pictures are loaded yet
* Click Upload file from the menu
* Click Select Album, its a drop down menu and select your user name
* Click Browse button and on your computer find the pictures you want to add to the gallery
* The file will upload but you need to make the file about no bigger than 1MB in Size and make it a .JPG file
* The picture will show on the screen, press continue and the file will be on the Gallery * You can repeat the above to add more pictures.
Through friendship with Mr Warburton, Mr L. S. Lowry, the famous Salford Artist, became actively involved with the Society and became its second President. Many notable local artists were members, including the Swithenbank family, Mr. John Bold, Miss Elizabeth Hesp, Mr Tom Worsley, Mr Jack Lewis, Mr Tommy Valentine (Freeman of the City of London) and Mr Stanley Warburton (Chairman of the Turner Society).
Some of these early members are still with us today, namely David Swithenbank, President of the Society, and Stanley Warburton, Vice- President. The Society continued to meet at the Bury Arts & Crafts Centre until 2004 and from that time meetings have been held at Bury College, Woodbury Centre, Market Street, Bury each Monday evening during term time. Membership, currently at over 50, continues to grow, with an average of twenty plus attending the weekly meetings.
Each year a varied programme of lectures, demonstrations and practical painting and drawing sessions covering all subjects and media continues to be arranged together with outdoor painting sessions during the summer months. Painting breaks at the Bury Outdoor Pursuits Centre at Glenridding in the Lake District are offered each Spring and Autumn. The Annual Exhibition of members’ work in the Art Gallery, together with Town Centre Outdoor Exhibitions have been a continuing source of pleasure to the artists and the public who have viewed them throughout the 50+ year history of the Art Society.. email micsax2@btinternet.com