Museum enters a new phase with the Roald Dahl Childrens Gallery
After 20 years the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery is to receive a makeover in the 100th anniversary year of Roald Dahl’s birth in 1916.
The gallery is a past winner of the Gulbenkian Childrens Museum of the Year award, has attracted nearly 2m visitors since it opened in 1996 and is operated by the Bucks County Museum Trust on behalf of the County Council. The Trustees have this week signed an important agreement with the Roald Dahl Literary Estate allowing it to continue to use the ‘Intellectual Property’ of the Dahl name and associated books, titles and certain illustrative material. To mark the changes a programme of improvements is timed to be complete before the school holidays – bringing some of the displays up to date and replacing out of date graphics and display items. What’s more, a new exhibition Roald Dahl’s Bucks – Bucks County Museum opens on July 2nd at the County Museum, making more connections to local people and places mentioned in his books.
Said the Museum Director Richard de Peyer: “The agreement we have just signed will allow us the comfort of knowing that the representatives of Dahl’s good name are right behind us and happy with our proposals. We are incredibly grateful for the help they have given and the free copies of books and other items for display. Our summer exhibition will celebrate the anniversary in a different way bringing Dahl’s local connections to the fore and establishing him firmly in our local context.”
The Museum is opening up new links to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden and is taking part in a new joint advertising initiative with them this summer as part of the summer ‘Raring2go!’ magazine promotion of “Seven Stories – the National Centre for Children’s Books”, on 12,500 bookmarks to be distributed in mid June across High Wycombe, Marlow and Henley.