The first curator of the Lincoln City and County Museum was Arthur Smith (1869–1947), who was born in Leicester and raised in Grimsby, and who was interested in natural history.
It is a simple building faced in stone with brick panels separated by simplified Tuscan pilasters, above which is a frieze decorated with triglyphs and a roofline finished with a balustrade.
Despite the building having been designed to rest above the Roman horizon, at the foot of the pit for the lift shaft was found the corner of a mosaic-paved passage which had been laid around a courtyard.
[11] Much of the new building is faced and paved with Ancaster stone and borrows the concept of the glass-covered courtyard from the British Museum in a feature reminiscent of a medieval alley.
[citation needed] The main entrance is at the northern, uphill end and leads past, to the left, the café, which faces south across a courtyard, and, to the right, the shop.
[12] The sample of mosaic exposed by the pre-construction archaeological excavation is now on view inside the museum, as part of a display extending through all periods from the Ice Age.
[13] The archaeological exhibition is organised as a timeline from the Stone Age, through Roman, Anglo-Saxon (including the Horncastle boar's head) and Viking occupation to the Medieval period.
[15] It includes a satellite photograph of the county of Lincolnshire on a scale which permits fields and villages to be sought out, while the picture's extent allows a general pattern of geology and the influence of the Roman roads to show through.
In 2014, prints by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse from the touring show Modern Masters went on display at the gallery.
[16] In 2013 the conceptual artist and academic Raimi Gbadamosi was invited to curate the rehang display What's Going On, featuring loans from the Arts Council Collection and the British Art Medal Society and works by the contemporary artists Edward Allington, Kimathi Donkor, Amanda Francis, Permindar Kaur, Taslim Martin, Janette Parris, Ritu Sood, Susan Stockwell, Maiko Tsutsumi and Mark Woods.