Waterford Gallery of Art — Attraction in Waterford

Visited Oct 2025 to see two temporary exhibitions, the Michael Cullen Exhibition on the ground floor and 'The sea around us' on the second floor. Both are well worth the visit. The building itself is beautiful, with the spaces used to enhance the exhibit pieces and nods to the previous use of the building. The scale of the Cullen pieces sat perfectly in the gallery, these large colourful pieces with lots of texture were beautifully lit and a joy to see. Upstairs housed 'The sea around us' exhibition and is a marvelous selection of maritime pieces. I loved the use of the background colour, it made a change from white walls. The gallery is free entry and the perfect size to stroll around whether it is to view the permanent exhibition or the current temporary ones. It is not a huge gallery and some of the permanent exhibition pieces may not be on view during temporary exhibition times. Do pop in and enjoy what the gallery has to offer. The pictures below are of the exhibitions viewing...

The owner's description here is "Home to Waterford's municipal art collection." The Gallery's website goes further: "Home to the Waterford Art Collection. One of the oldest and best civic collections of art in Ireland." My wife and I saved it as a treat for the last afternoon of our stay. What did we find? The ground floor galleries devoted to a temporary exhibition which others have praised but was not of great interest to us. The upstairs galleries were closed for setting up another temporary exhibition. Of the municipal collection there was no sign and when I enquired of the woman on reception, she seemed to know nothing about it. We were very disappointed and recommend a careful check when planning a visit to avoid the same...

We visited this gallery 18th September hoping to see their advertised collection with works by well known Irish artists. We checked the website for opening times and information. When we arrived the collection was unavailable as they were setting up a new one. We had driven out of our way to visit this. I appreciate that exhibitions change but it would be sensible AND considerate to make that known on the website. Why advertise a permanent collection if it isn’t available to the public? Other reviews indicate that we were not the only travellers to be inconvenienced...