About us
Who we are
Watts Gallery Trust is an independent charity established in 1904 to manage the legacy of George Frederic Watts OM RA, one of the leading artists of the nineteenth century. Today, Watts Gallery Trust is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation that oversees Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village. Consisting of Limnerslease, the former home of artists G F Watts and Mary Seton Watts, the Grade I listed Watts Cemetery Chapel, designed by Mary Watts, the Pottery Building that formerly housed the Compton Potters Arts Guild, and Watts Gallery established in 1904 as the UK’s first single artist museum, the Artists’ Village is a leading regional visitor attraction.
The Trust delivers an ambitious and far-reaching engagement and learning programme in prisons, in the local community and onsite, working to deliver our founders’ Art for All ethos with some of the most vulnerable in society. It also manages the Artist’s Studio Museum Network of 157 artist’s studio museums across Europe, and the thriving Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village, which is located in Compton, outside Guildford across 18 acres of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.