Poll: Are Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin a good choice to launch Shrewsbury's new gallery?
Shropshire is finally just weeks away from the opening of a stunning new museum and art gallery in the heart of Shrewsbury that will celebrate the county's history and heritage.
The site has been mired in controversy during the building phase due to substantial construction delays and plans to charge for general admission.
But bosses behind the restoration project are confident the new museum and art gallery will prove to have been worth the wait when it finally throws open its doors to the public on April 1.
The first touring exhibition visiting the site will feature works by the likes of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Jake and Dinos Chapman.
The pieces are part of an exhibition showcasing pieces leant to the museum by Frank Cohen, one of Britain's leading collectors of contemporary art.
It will be on site up until the end of June, with the works specially chosen for the way they resonate with the museum's Darwinian theme.
The choice of artists has sparked debate online, with readers divided in their opinion. Vote in our poll: Are Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin a good choice to launch Shrewsburys new gallery? Have your say in the comments box below.
Tracey Emin:
Tracey Emin shot to fame as one of the main figures of the Young British Artists movement in the 1990s and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999 for her work My Bed.
She exhibited her own bed covered with objects and traces of her struggle with depression during relationship difficulties.
After a difficult childhood, Tracey Emin squatted in London after dropping out of school at 13. This period of her life provided a strong inspiration for much of her later work.
She studied art in Essex and London, deciding to destroy all her work after a traumatic abortion in 1989.
She began working only several years later, reworking her past by producing confessional letters and combining them with mementoes. The piece Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95 brought her to public attention.
Damien Hirst:
Turner Prize winner Damien Hirst, most-famous for his shark preserved in formaldehyde and skull covered in thousands of diamonds, has been one of the countrys most famous artists for two decades.
He graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1989, winning the Turner Prize in 1995.
Since 1987, more than 80 solo Damien Hirst exhibitions have taken place worldwide and his work has been included in over 260 group shows.
His contribution to British art over the last two and a half decades was recognised in 2012 with a major retrospective of his work staged at Tate Modern.
Hirst said his career has been about using a varied practice of installation, sculpture, painting and drawing to explore the complex relationship between art, life and death.
The Shrewsbury museum collection has found its home in several different locations in the town throughout the past 200 years.
Most recently it was located at Rowley's House, before the decision was made in 2006 to move over to the site of the old Music Hall and Vaughan's Mansion.
Work first started on the museum in 2009 and it had been hoped the facility would open in the former Music Hall in Shrewsbury's Square by November 2011.
But severe structural problems were uncovered with the 13th century Vaughan's Mansion section of the site, with six tonnes of steel needed to maintain the stability of the structure.
Dr Tim Jenkins, heritage project manager for Shropshire Council, said: "The new complex spans over 750 years of architecture and heritage all in one footprint.
"This has been a huge challenge and at times it's been heartbreaking for us but we couldn't give up.
"This is not an ordinary provincial museum – it will be a real cultural attraction with a collection that is world class."
The venue is expected to attract tens of thousands of visitors each year and provide a major boost to the local economy.
Visitors to the museum will go on a journey through time, with galleries covering everything from the Ice Age all the way up to the Industrial Revolution. They will be able to see
Roman tombstones, mammoth bones and even a 2,000-year-old looking glass. The site will also be home to the 1802 John Varley painting of Shrewsbury after a fundraising campaign by the Friends of the Museum and Art Gallery.
Emma-Kate Lanyon, head of collections and curatorial services for Shropshire Council, said many of the collections have national importance.
"Trustees from the British Museum have been helping us to bring home the Berth Cauldron, a remarkable late Iron Age find from Shropshire which will be on display in the county for the first time in over 100 years," she said.
"Another key item returning to us is the Corbet Bed, made in 1593 for a Shropshire family and loaned from the Victoria & Albert Museum.
"Local people too have donated a treasure trove of objects, including the supposed scaffold cloth from the execution of Charles I and one of Shrewsbury astronomer Henry Blunt's groundbreaking nineteenth century models of the surface of the moon." The ground floor of the site will also be home to a new cafe bar as well as a shop.
Alongside its permanent collections, Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery has invited a series of internationally-renowned contemporary artists and interpreters such as Shirley Chubb, Neil Brownsword and Ilana Halperin to curate and interpret the exhibits and create specially-commissioned works.
Andrew Bannerman, Shropshire councillor for Quarry and Coton Hill, said: "The whole population of Shrewsbury have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the new museum and I'm delighted that they will soon have the chance to visit. "
Visit www.shrewsburymuseum.org.uk or follow @shrewsmuseum on Twitter.
