National museums get funding boost
National museums get funding boost
PLUS: New world record for museum visits
— In partnership with the Museum Data Service
This edition also features: Sainsbury Wing reopening date | Munch at the National Portrait Gallery | Malta’s first art gallery
Happy Friday.
Last week, Ben Melham broke the world record for the most museums visited in a single day (official ratification is imminent). More on this story below — including a chat with me.
Ben broke the record in London. And one reason he embarked on the marathon visit-a-thon was to raise awareness of the diversity of museums available in the British capital. As someone who has lived and worked in London and its museums for over 15 years, I applaud the sentiment. But it reminded me that it’s very easy to take the rich cultural offer in the city for granted.
In fact, even typing this I realise I’ve even experienced the diversity of the city’s museum offerings myself in the past 18 hours.
This week I went to the opening event of the new Women & Freud exhibition at the Freud Museum. The small museum in Hampstead is hosting some big female names in contemporary art — Emin, Lucas, Rego — to help tell the story of the women in Freud’s life and the legacy of his work. Wonderful art pieces are dotted throughout the small, carpeted rooms and hallways of this North London former home of the father of psychoanalysis. It’s a bit baggy, but it is illuminating.
The next morning, I went to a preview of the new Italian Renaissance drawings exhibition at the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. I mean what you can say: some of the greatest masters of all time — Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael — in the grandeur of the purpose-built gallery to show off the remarkable Royal Collection. It’s a vibe.
Two totally different venues, in vastly different locations. The Freud Museum is introspective and intimate, in the leafy streets that feel a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The King’s Gallery, in contrast, offers a grand and expansive setting that literally has the city’s bustle right on its doorstep. But both showing world-class collections.
So take this introduction to today’s edition as my gratitude journal for London’s museums. Especially — as I report week-in, week-out in this newsletter — museums in London and the rest of the UK are facing tough times. We should remember how lucky we are to have them, before it’s too late.
— maxwell
ps. another city doing great things with their museum is Antwerp. Read my latest article on four museums collaborating to showcase Belgium’s art history to the wider world.
— In partnership with the Museum Data Service
Huge "leap forward" for museums begins
It’s an unprecedented moment for Britain's museums.
Until now, it's not been possible to search the millions of objects in the UK's collections in one place.
But the solution to that problem has begun, as the Museum Data Service (MDS) is now live. Through a single platform, 3 million objects can now be searched. 2 million will be added imminently.
Art UK is the first institutional user of the service, allowing it to double the number of artworks on their platform by the year end. Its Director Andrew Ellis says this "will revolutionise our ability to research our museums." He wants museums across the country to "embrace this new frontier."
A key feature of MDS is that it's as easy for small collections to upload data as for large.
Dame Mary Beard thinks "we will look back and wonder how on earth we managed without it.”
The service is a collaboration between Art UK, Collections Trust, and the University of Leicester, with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
Now it's over to museums themselves to embrace this digital revolution — and to add their collections.
Need To Know
Budget boost to national museums
The UK government’s funding of England’s national museums is to go up next year, yesterday’s Budget confirmed. The funding — ‘grant-in-aid’ which is given in part to offset the lost income from free entry — will rise in 2025/26 in order to “help support their long-term sustainability.” But how much it will rise by has not been revealed.
The government has also pledged to provide “a package of cultural infrastructure funding that will build on existing capital schemes.” An increase in funding for capital projects has resulted in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s annual budget lifting by 2.6% in real terms.
Yet leaders of two of the biggest regional museums in England have criticised the first Labour Budget in 15 years. Tony Butler, the executive director at Derby Museums, tells The Art Newspaper that civic museums are now “in a worse position.” He pinpoints the rise in the National Minimum Wage and the increase in employer National Insurance contributions as the measures that will “put even more pressure on already fragile museum organisations.” Sara Wajid, co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust agreed. “This budget leaves us worse off” she said. (Read more)
Museum world record smashed
The world record for most museums visited in 24 hours has been smashed.
Cultural sector consultant Ben Melham visited 42 museums last Friday, across Central London. He stopped off at venues including the Bank of England Museum and the Royal Academy. The previous world record was 33 museums across Delhi in India, completed earlier this year. The attempt was sanctioned by Guinness World Records (GWR), who are expected to ratify the record in the coming weeks.
Speaking to this newsletter, Ben told me he embarked on the record attempt “to raise awareness of the diversity of museums available.” Planning was the biggest challenge he said, especially the “challenging rules” GWR had set him, such as the museums needing to be open to public at the time of the visit. This meant in reality it needed to be done in an 11 hour window instead of 24.
Ben said he was “exhausted but elated” at the end. He paid tribute to the “kind, supportive and encouraging” staff at all the 42 museums. “It makes me proud of the museum sector and the vital role it plays within the communities they serve.” (Read more)
News from the UK
Opening date 📅 | The controversial redesign of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing will be unveiled to the public on 15 May 2025 it’s been announced. The multi-million-pound revamp aims to better accommodate the gallery’s millions of visitors, but many figures have criticised the level of intervention in the Grade I listed building. But the reopening can’t come too soon. New enhanced security measures enacted after Just Stop Oil protests have seen queues of nearly an hour to enter the gallery this week. (Read more)
Roof repair 🪜 | Blenheim Palace has announced the largest restoration project in its history, as well as new visitor experiences. The £10.4 million project will see the historic roof restored, which has seen leaking water saturate timbers which are now also infested with Death Watch Beetle, resulting in damage to a ceiling fresco by Sir James Thornhill. As part of the restoration, a ticketed viewing platform will be erected to offer “unprecedented panoramic views” across the estate. (Read more)
Locked away 🔐 | University College London (UCL) will this month dismantle it’s world-class art collection and museum, with no firm plans in place to re-house it. The university’s 1820s main building is being turned “into a mixed-use space” and the current museum will become “a flexible space to support events” such as the Freshers’ Fair. Staff have expressed “deep concern” over the “outrageous” plans. UCL said the artworks would go into storage. (Read more)
Self-reflection 🪞 | Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery is to host an exhibition on how artists in Britain have portrayed each other. Covering 125 years of British portraiture, Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists will show work by Lucian Freud, Maggi Hambling, Barbara Hepworth, Lubaina Himid, and many others to explore rivalry, friendships, inspiration and selfhood. Other 2025 exhibitions announced for the gallery include Rana Begum RA curating a new interpretation of their British art collection.
News from around the world
Malta 🇲🇹 | Malta’s first-ever museum dedicated to contemporary art has officially opened. The €30m Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS) was inaugurated by Prime Minister Robert Abela, and Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, whose work is the subject of the centre’s first exhibition. It’s built inside a 17th-century fortification. Artistic director Edith Devaney said the opening would do the same for Valletta as the Guggenheim did for Bilbao. (Read more)
Unites States 🇺🇸 | A huge wave of new acquisitions by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA have been announced. Highlights include 80 pieces of original animation art from Studio Ghibli, animator’s maquettes from Disney’s Pinocchio, Fantasia, and The Lion King, and papers from Showgirls Director Paul Verhoeven. “The Academy Collection plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of moviemaking,” Matt Severson, Executive Vice President of the collection said. (Read more)
France 🇫🇷 | With just over a month to go before the Notre Dame in Paris reopens after 2019’s devastating fire, a row has erupted over the culture minister’s proposal to charge an entry fee. Rachida Dat said non-French citizens should pay €5, which she said would be dedicated to preserving France’s crumbling churches. But France’s Catholic church blasted the idea, saying free access was the “fundamental mission” of churches, and the Cathedral must welcome everyone “unconditionally.” (Read more)
🔗 OPINION | The French would be crackers to charge an entry fee for Notre-Dame | Anthony Peregrine in the Telegraph
United States 🇺🇸 | A curator at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum has unearthed a previously unknown waltz written by Frédéric Chopin. The rare manuscript — dated between 1830 and 1835 — was discovered by curator Robinson McClellan in 2019 while he was cataloguing new collections. It’s been authenticated after a series of tests on the paper, handwriting and musical style. “To hear this work for the first time will be an exciting moment for everyone in the world of classical piano” McClellan said. (Read more)
Best of the rest
I’m screaming | The first UK exhibition to focus on the portraits of Edvard Munch is to open at the National Portrait Gallery next year. Also in 2025, the gallery will host shows on the Face magazine, and fashion photographer Cecil Beaton. (More)
Youngest ever | A 25-year-old children’s author has become the youngest Chair of the Brontë Society — which operates Yorkshire’s Bronte Parsonage museum — in its 131-year history. Lucy Powrie, aka lucythereader, has been a member of the society since she was teenager. (More)
Fright sights | To mark Halloween, the National Science and Media Museum revealed some horrifying details of its new permanent galleries opening next summer. They’ll spotlight the Hammer Films story, and will show Christopher Lee’s fangs from Dracula. (More)
Frick’s back | After five year’s of closure, there’s finally an opening date — ok, month — for New York’s Frick Collection. The refurbished Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue will reopen in April, with a Vermeer show. (More)
Surely not? | Did nothing happen at DCMS when Nadine Dorries was culture secretary because she was…too nice? Popbitch reports when a department staffer had a break up, Nadine scrapped her diary, bought prosecco, and everyone drank and slagged off 'bloody men' all afternoon." (More)
"Landmark achievement" | The Museum Data Service is now live. Millions of UK museum objects can be searched in one place — and Art UK is leading the way in using the "transformative" new platform.* (More)
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👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | Former BBC presenter Andrew Marr slams contemporary art world for being 'corrupted, pretentious and offensive'
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