Wales' National Museum of Art

Business was pretty brisk when I paid my first visit to Wales new National Museum of Art, i.e. the extended first- (and in an exciting development, second-) floor exhibition-space at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, bringing together familiar pieces (e.g. the world-renowned collection of impressionists; works by the old Welsh Masters – the Johns, Ceri Richards etc.), new exhibits, and presumably a lot of stuff that’s been in storage – notably (unless I’ve missed them previously), a startlingly vivid Himalayan landscape by Edward Lear, and a hypnotic wintry Valleys scene by Ernest Zobole. The contemporary work includes Jeremy Deller’s Manic Street Preachers installation, a miniature stone circle by Richard Long, and Common Culture’s amusingly celebratory “takeaway” experience. In fact, for the first time in my 30 years of casually popping in, it’s all too diverse and dazzling to take in in a single session; which can only be a good thing.