About FoSMAG
Find out more about who we are, what we do, and how we're organised.
Who we are
The Friends of Southampton's Museums, Archives & Galleries (FoSMAG) is a registered charity, founded in 1976.
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We're dedicated to supporting and promoting the work of Southampton's museums, archives, and galleries.
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We primarily work with the following Southampton City Council services:
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Southampton City Art Gallery
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SeaCity Museum
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Tudor House & Garden
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Southampton City Archives
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The Maritime and Local History museum collection
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We also work in partnership with many of the galleries, museums, and arts and heritage venues in Southampton, including:
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God's House Tower
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The Arts Society, Southampton
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The John Hansard Gallery
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SeaCity Museum, Southampton.
Tudor House, Southampton.
Funding
An Extensive Landscape, Philips de Koninck (1619-1688),
Southampton City Art Gallery.
FoSMAG provides financial support for Southampton's cultural institutions. This helps them undertake work or make purchases for which they may otherwise not have funding. It also helps them access further funding opportunities from organisations that require 'matched funding' from local sources.
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The kinds of activities our members support through their subscriptions includes:
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Conservation of paintings, sculptures, frames
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Specialist storage and preservation
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Purchasing artefacts and artworks for Southampton's public collections
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Exhibition catalogues
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Professional training
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We're currently raising money to fund a new frame for the 17th-Century oil painting An Extensive Landscape (pictured), held in Southampton City Art Gallery.
Explore some of the recent projects we've helped to fund...
Frame conservation work on 'Major E.C. Harrison' (1887) by John Singer Sargent, City Art Gallery.
Conservation work on frame for Claude Monet's 'The Church at Vétheuil' (1880), City Art Gallery.
Purchasing Joyce Pallot's oil painting 'Quayside, Southampton' (1956) for SeaCity Museum.
Buying William Ludlow's 'Rebuilding Southampton No. 1' (1963) for SeaCity Museum.
Catalogue for Lisa Traxler's 'Time Traveller' exhibition, City Art Gallery, 2022.
New frame for Mark Gertler's 'The Rabbi and His Grandchild' (1913), City Art Gallery.
Supporting personal donations
Images from Alan Ellery's documents, now in Southampton Archives.
As a charity, we can help individual benefactors to make gifts and long term loans to the City's Museums or Art Gallery. For example, we recently arranged a private benefactor's gift of two Victorian library celestial globes, made by Smith & Son of London. The globes are now on public display in SeaCity Museum.
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We encourage our members and others to donate items of historial interest to Southampton's Archives service. One example is the log book of Southampton Electricity Department worker Alan Ellery (pictured), which contains detailed records of damage to city infrastructure during the Blitz.
Governance
FoSMAG has an organising Committee, which meets bimonthly. Committee members are elected by the wider FoSMAG membership and serve for three-year terms.
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We also have several much-valued Officers who volunteer their time and expertise to help keep the charity running. If you'd like to get involved, please do drop us a line!
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We normally hold our Annual General Meeting in November each year. All members are warmly invited to attend and vote. We try to follow the business of the meeting with an interesting historical or cultural presentation and a chance for everyone to socialise.
FoSMAG's current Committee Members and Officers are listed below.
FoSMAG Committee members at Southampton City Art Gallery, January 2023.
Tim Craven
Chair
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Jenny Leonard
Membership Secretary & Newsletter Editor
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Matt Tantony
Secretary, Archives & Website Manager​
Nick Boyer
Treasurer
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Deborah Goatley-Birch
Events Secretary​
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Nina Lazarski
Committee Member