Karen Sherwood opened Cupola Contemporary Art in Hillsborough in 1991, choosing a shopfront on Middlewood Road between a betting shop and a launderette to give Sheffield's contemporary artists an exhibition and sales space the city then lacked. The gallery has grown into four connected rooms, the Reception, Craft, Main and Long galleries, plus a sculpture garden, showing upwards of 300 painters, jewellers, glassmakers, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and textile artists at any one time, with a fresh hang roughly every six weeks. Sherwood still runs the gallery as director and curator, having returned to her own oil painting practice in 2014 after stepping back from it during the gallery's early years. Ground-floor access is step-free with ramps; the first-floor room is reached by an outdoor metal staircase.
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