Exhibitions

All of the museum’s in-house exhibitions are FREE to visit after admission to the museum.

Rooted in the Land

Temporary exhibition, Saturday 1 March 2025 to Sunday 27 July 2025
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gallery

Amersham’s relationship with the surrounding countryside has been key to its identity for hundreds of years. The shape of the land has been formed over these centuries. Farming creates fields, hedges and also markets, footpaths are moulded by travellers, drovers and ramblers, and the landscape is a place for country pursuits as well as work. From the elegant estate at Shardeloes to HS2’s extensive groundworks, people have always altered the countryside around them.

The surrounding land also provides raw materials.  Bricks, flint and wood for building, wood and rushes for furniture making, straw and clay for cottage industries, and for larger scale industry such as brewing, water and barley. Butchers, milkmen, and watercress growers alike also have a place in local history.

Investigate these local stories, illustrated by a wide range of objects, film and images from Amersham Museum’s collection. From horseshoes and hunting jackets, to egg sorters and toy farm animals, explore the links between town and country over Amersham’s history.

Previous Exhibition – PRECIOUS OBJECTS

Temporary exhibition, Thursday 5 September 2024 to Sunday 15 December 2024
Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gallery

“we were all clutching for dear life onto a few precious objects we managed to take with us.” Marie-Louise von Motesiczky

When artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky fled her home in Vienna at the start of the Second World War, she was only able to bring a few items to England. This is the experience for most refugees, in history and today. Alongside packing practical items, you might choose an object with sentimental or emotional value. We are delighted to be borrowing a pair of 18th century enamelled sheep ornaments from Tate, two items precious to Marie-Louise, as part of this exhibition.

Artist Elaine Duigenan has designed this exhibition, working with pupils at Our Lady’s School, children who attend the Museum’s Art Club, and other local people to create artworks. They explore what make objects valuable to us. She has also been inspired by Marie-Louise’s experiences and her home in Amersham on Chestnut Lane.

Visitors and organisers from Amersham’s Refugee Week 2024 event, members of Amersham Museum Singing Group, and other local residents including Amersham Mayor Dominic Pinkney and Sarah Green MP, have each lent a precious object and shared its story. Our Collections Volunteers have also nominated their most precious object on display in the Museum for visitors to discover.

Previous Exhibition – Marie-Louise in Amersham

In 1940, Vienna-born artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906-1996) moved to Amersham, with her mother Henriette and their housekeeper Marie Hauptmann. Fleeing persecution in Austria, initially via Amsterdam and London, they settled in Buckinghamshire. She spent time with other émigrés living in Amersham, including the future Nobel prize-winning author Elias Canetti (1905-94), and the composer, pianist and teacher Francesco Ticciati (1893-1949).

Starting with her six paintings in the museum’s collection, explore Marie-Louise’s time in Amersham, her direct community on Chestnut Lane and fellow émigrés who visited her there during (and directly after) the Second World War. Amersham was a refuge for many during the war, and Marie-Louise would have encountered others who had settled here temporarily.  Beyond her own circle of friends, she would have witnessed evacuee children sent to Amersham to live with local families, a community of Jewish people, mostly from London, and people displaced from the capital and other cities. She would have seen the Home Guard on manoeuvres, and witnessed soldiers based throughout the town, in transit before missions elsewhere. There was a wider official presence too, with elite naval officers training in old Amersham, scientists establishing a research centre in Little Chalfont and German prisoners of war helping MI5 and MI6 at Latimer House. The exhibition features copies of Marie-Louise’s works that captured some of this wartime community.

The exhibition has a specific focus on the road Marie-Louise lived on, Chestnut Lane, on the border between Amersham and the village of Chesham Bois. In the 1940s the road was unmade, without street lights and featured a mix of large and small houses, a pub and a local shop. At the end of the road there was (and still is) a local farm surrounded by rolling hills. The exhibition features some of the people who lived on the road, their jobs and work to support the war effort, in order to imagine who Marie-Louise saw and knew, and to better understand our town’s wartime community.

The exhibition also includes works created through our community learning programme. Through four artist-led workshops, families from the South Bucks Jewish Community have learned about Marie-Louise and her portraiture, and created their own self-portraits for display. We have also worked with 180 children from Chestnut Lane Infant School, which is located directly opposite Cornerways, the house Marie-Louise lived in. Artwork created by the Year 2 children about the people and events that took place on Chestnut Lane in the 1940s features in an illustrated map and trail.

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Previous Exhibition – Amersham Before Plastic

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Online Exhibition – Amersham in Lockdown

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Online Exhibition – Amersham Through a Lens

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Online Exhibition – Amersham Museum Art Club Spring Show

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