Step through our door in the High Street and you will be on a journey of discovery. Inside the Gallery, you will find interlinked spaces and changing displays of contemporary art to browse and buy. You can also treat yourself to a leisurely view of some of our Permanent Collection. The slightly quirky layout is because the Gallery has been created from two domestic houses in two different Rye streets, now combined via a short staircase link. Artists Howard Gull Stormont (1859-1935) and Mary Elizabeth Stormont (1871—1962) lived in Ypres Studio, an Arts and Crafts house in Ockmans Lane, and artist Eileen Easton lived at 107 High Street. The houses now make one premises. Mary and Howard had eloped to Rye, as Mary’s parents in Essex had thought that their daughter marrying a man somewhat older than she, and a practising artist at that, was not a desirable match. They married in Rye church. Both were regional exhibitors while Mary in particular regularly exhibited her flower paintings, landscapes and interiors at the Royal Academy. She created the Rye Art Gallery Trust in 1957 and bequeathed the Ypres Studio to the Trust at her death in 1962. One of the couple’s many artist friends, the painter Eileen Easton, became one of the original trustees and she later bequeathed her High Street house to the Trust as well.
