Wiltshire landscape highlighted in new exhibition

Curated by Andrew Lambirth, ‘John Piper in the South Country’ launched at Wiltshire Museum in March 2026 and is on tour at Museum & Art Swindon as part of the Arts Council England-funded Wessex Museums Partnership programme.

Piper is a widely popular artist but there has been no previous exhibition of the work he created in the south and south-west of England. Yet he made some of his most significant paintings of subjects from this area, including Stourhead, Fonthill and Lacock and one of his finest early collages is of the neolithic site at Avebury, just down the road from Swindon.

The exhibition includes examples of all these, plus a number of the churches in the area, from Inglesham to Knowlton and Britwell Salome. Piper also painted different aspects of the Salisbury Plain including a view of a neolithic barrow, the land under plough in the Second World War and the great monument of Stonehenge. Other subjects include a street corner in Lydiard Park, Cerne Abbas and several studies of the Isle of Portland.

‘John Piper in the South Country’ brings together artworks from private and public collections from across the country. They join Swindon’s own ‘Bolingbroke at Lydiard Tregoze’ (1940) from the collection at Lydiard House Museum.

Councillor Matt Vallender, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Culture, Planning and Regeneration, said: “The work on display in this new exhibition showcases the amazing landscape that we’re fortunate to have on our doorstep and highlights the beauty of our local countryside that inspired John Piper’s original works.

“Thanks to the Wessex Museums Partnership, we’re able to bring exhibitions like this to Swindon, giving residents the chance to experience nationally significant collections without having to travel. I’d encourage everyone to visit before the end of September to see for themselves.”

‘John Piper in the South Country’ is open at Museum & Art Swindon in the Civic Offices, Euclid Street , until 26 September.