Oxmarket Contemporary celebrates 50 years of success
It’s a massive year ahead for the team at Chichester’s Oxmarket Contemporary as they celebrate 50 years of operation at the heart of the city’s art provision.
They are marking their golden anniversary with a programme of events aimed at securing the venue’s next half century. The point is that they are starting from a position of strength.
“It is great to be able to celebrate that we have been here for 50 years,” says Louise Myles, chair of trustees. “We were the first gallery in Chichester and we are terribly proud of what we have achieved. We have not only lasted 50 years but we have come a long, long way over those 50 years particularly since the refurbishment that we had during and just after Covid (under then chairman Sophie Hull). We turned the corner from being a more provincial, more village like space to being a properly professional gallery. The refurbishment has made an enormous difference. Sophie was absolutely amazing at raising the money that was needed and she did a wonderful job.”
Founded in 1976, the Oxmarket Centre of Arts, as it then was, transformed a bomb-damaged medieval church just off East Street into Chichester’s first art gallery.
“A lot of people remember it as a bomb site. The church was damaged by bombs that dropped nearby but then a group of incredibly strong-minded people got together and raised an awful lot of money to make it happen. It wouldn't sound like a lot of money now but back then it was a huge amount of money but they raised the money and they set up a charitable trust and they were able to open and to preserve the building. It started as the Oxmarket Centre of Arts but over the years we've become more single-minded in our focus on art. We are now predominantly an art gallery – though we do show all forms of media within that focus on art.”
Since then, from its central Chichester location, the gallery, now known as Oxmarket Contemproary, has hosted thousands of exhibitions and cultural events; supported local and emerging artists at key moments in their careers; and welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors, always free.
“It is now a very different proposition to what it was when it started. We have become much better known and, dare I say, much more prestigious. The space really stepped up with the refurbishment. The outside is the same but the inside is now very different.
“We don't need to make a huge profit but we need to cover all of our costs and we have to make a surplus. During Covid obviously that was harder, and since then we've had to get our visitor numbers up. But we have got good numbers now. We get about 30,000 visitors a year. We would love to have more than that of course, but 30,000 is a good number.”
And the anniversary is great chance to build on that. One of the key events this year will be the anniversary exhibition in July.