National Museum Cardiff Guide: Art & Dinosaurs

Take in the grand stone facade of the National Museum Cardiff as it anchors the civic center with centuries of art and natural history. Situated directly north of Cardiff Castle in Cathays Park, the museum is the flagship institution of Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales). Architects Arnold Dunbar Smith and Cecil Brewer designed the structure in the Beaux-Arts Classical style, utilizing Portland stone to create a monumental presence. The museum uniquely unites fine art and the natural sciences under a single roof.

A Delayed Classical Vision

Founded by Royal Charter in 1907, the institution absorbed earlier municipal collections formerly housed in the Cardiff Free Library. Construction began in 1912 but was heavily delayed by the First World War.

The building partially opened in 1922 and was formally inaugurated by King George V in 1927. Due to the historical interruptions, the final structure represents a truncated version of the architects' expansive original blueprint. Today, a high, echoic domed marble hall creates a sense of classical grandeur at the main entrance.

The Evolution of Wales

The ground floor is dedicated to the natural sciences, tracing 4.6 billion years of history from the Big Bang to the Ice Age. The immersive "Evolution of Wales" exhibition utilizes rumbling audio effects and sudden shifts in temperature and lighting to simulate geological epochs.

Dimmed walkways transition through simulated volcanic rifts, alongside displays of animatronic and articulated dinosaur skeletons. Genuine meteorites, moon rock fragments, footprints, and skeletal specimens of dinosaurs found across South Wales are featured among the paleontological displays. The natural history collections also include taxidermy, marine biology, and a massive leatherback sea turtle specimen.

A Coal Fortune's Artistic Legacy

The first floor contains the National Museum of Art, characterized by quiet, naturally skylit upper rooms. The collection holds major works of British, Welsh, and European painting and sculpture. The museum's exceptional holdings of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art trace back to a massive bequest in the 1950s and 1960s by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies.

The Davies sisters were strict, teetotal, chapel-going women who funded their art purchases using family wealth generated by the South Wales coal and rail boom. Their bequest of 260 works instantly gave Wales one of the finest collections of French Impressionist art outside of London and Paris.

Masterpieces on Display

The vivid blues and pastels of Impressionist masterworks dominate the galleries. The art collection features Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Parisienne, a painting known locally as the "Blue Lady." Other highlights include Auguste Rodin’s bronze cast of The Kiss, Claude Monet's Rouen Cathedral, and Vincent van Gogh's Rain at Auvers.

The collection also holds Paul Cézanne’s The François Zola Dam. The painting was initially rejected when offered on loan to London’s Tate Gallery before finding its permanent home in Cardiff.