A Year with the Art Fund National Art Pass: 12 Exhibitions, £96 Saved

Last Christmas I asked for experiences rather than things and added an Art Fund National Art Pass to my list. I was delighted when my mum gave it to me, and it quickly became more than just a gift - it changed how I explored, planned and thought about art.

Over 2025 I used the pass to see 12 exhibitions at 10 venues. The full ticket value came to £159.50. I actually spent £65. That is a saving of £96.25, comfortably more than the cost of the pass itself at £63.25. What follows is a record of where I went, what I saw and how the numbers stacked up.

1. Royal Pavilion, Brighton – General Visit

18 January 2025 Full cost £19 | Spent £0 | Saved £19

I began the year at the Royal Pavilion, a building that never does subtle. Onion domes, chinoiserie interiors and George IV excess make it gloriously strange every time. Free entry with the Art Pass meant I walked in feeling smug rather than sensible, which turned out to be an excellent way to start the year.

2. Charleston at Lewes – Grayson Perry

22 January 2025 Full cost £5.50 | Spent £2.75 | Saved £2.75

A small but punchy exhibition in a place that thrives on creative independence. Perry’s humour, provocation and vulnerability fitted neatly into Charleston’s long tradition of not quite behaving as expected.

3. Charleston at Lewes – Collecting Modernism: Pablo Picasso to Winifred Nicholson (The Radev Collection)

1 March 2025 Full cost £5.50 | Spent £2.75 | Saved £2.75

There were some big names, of course, but the real pleasure came from the discoveries, modernism revealed as something thoughtful, personal and quietly rewarding if you slowed down and paid attention.

4. No. 1 Royal Crescent, Bath – General Visit

28 March 2025 Full cost £16 | Spent £8 | Saved £8

Stepping into No. 1 Royal Crescent is like walking onto the set of a period drama just before filming starts. Everything is elegant, restrained and perfectly arranged. Half price entry made it feel indulgent rather than extravagant.

5. Victoria Art Gallery, Bath – Mirror of Mirth: Satire in Georgian Bath

29 March 2025 Full cost £8 | Spent £4 | Saved £4

Sharp, funny and surprisingly relatable, this exhibition proved that satire has always been a vital social tool. Georgian Bath clearly enjoyed a good laugh, often at someone else’s expense.

6. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester – Multiple Exhibitions and Permanent Collection

15 April 2025

Full cost £14 | Spent £6.75 | Saved £7.25

One ticket covered Dora Carrington: Beyond Bloomsbury, Maggi Hambling: Nightingale Night, Pattern: Rhythm and Repetition and the permanent collection. Carrington’s work in particular lingered, intense and emotionally charged, making this one of the richest visits of the year.

7. Museum of Brands – General Visit

6 June 2025 Full cost £11.50 | Spent £5.75 | Saved £5.75

An unexpectedly moving trip through packaging, advertising and consumer design. Nostalgia is the obvious hook but the real pleasure lies in seeing how everyday objects quietly shape memory and identity.

8. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester – Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists

8 July 2025 Full cost £17 | Spent £8.50 | Saved £8.50

A thoughtful and generous exhibition about how artists depict one another. Intimate and revealing, it rewarded slow looking and careful attention.

9. Verulamium Museum, St Albans – General Visit

2 August 2025 Full cost £10 | Spent £0 | Saved £10

Roman mosaics, domestic artefacts and layers of history beneath a modern town. Free entry made this an easy summer visit and one that was more moving than I would have expected.

10. Wallace Collection – Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur

17 September 2025 Full cost £15 | Spent £7.50 | Saved £7.50

Perry’s work played brilliantly against the Wallace Collection’s historic luxury. The contrast highlighted questions of taste, status and excess with humour rather than heaviness. His guided audio tour a real bonus.

11. Prospect Cottage – General Visit

26 September 2025 Full cost £18 | Spent £9 | Saved £9

More pilgrimage than gallery visit. The house, the garden, the wild, windswept shingle feels deliberate, intimate and profoundly moving. The landscape itself becomes a living artwork, simultaneously fragile and defiant, leaving an emotional resonance that lingers long after you leave.

With my mum at Prospect Cottage

12. Tate Britain – Lee Miller

2 December 2025 Full cost £20 | Spent £10 | Saved £10

Neatly organised through her entire career from surrealist experiments to fashion photography from playful glamour to harrowing images you almost wish you had not seen Lee Miller’s work confronts and captivates at every turn.

By the end of the year the maths was undeniable. £159.50 worth of visits, £65 spent and £96.25 saved. The Art Fund National Art Pass more than paid for itself, but more importantly it changed how I behaved. I hesitated less, wandered more and treated art as something to return to rather than ration. It reshaped how I planned my days, steering me towards galleries I might otherwise have skipped. Next year I want to use the pass to push myself beyond my comfort zone.