Da Vinci outrage at Paris 2024
PLUS: National Gallery reveals two visitor milestones
This edition also features: Stonehenge tunnel axed | Museum’s encourage loud children | Warhol’s computer portrait rediscovered
Happy Friday
And a big welcome to the 54 new readers who have signed up in the past week. It’s great to have you here.
Last Friday I wrote about the new pooing pigeon logo from the London Museum (nee Museum of London). And it made quite the splash. Or should that be (glittery) splat?
My bafflement on the choice of logo was covered by Time Out, Euronews, Hypebeast, Art Net and even news sites in Italy and France. Why the coverage? I like to think it shows the growing influence of this newsletter and my high profile readers! But if I’m honest I think it’s because most other people are equally baffled by the new branding. (Maybe both?)
Most importantly though, is what you thought of it. And, well, you overwhelming agree with me. In last week’s poll asking if you liked the new logo, 70% of you didn’t. The poll also got more votes than any other poll I’ve ran. Which I think speaks to very strong reactions. The full breakdown is at the end of this edition.
It was never going to be easy to come up with a new logo for the museum. Harder still to please everyone. But as I said last week, it just feels like bizarre logic for this organisation.
But reactions to this branding will fade and we will get used to it, with all its flaws.
The real story to keep an eye on is the ballooning cost of the new museum (first forecasted at £150m, now £437m) and its long delays. It’s an ambitious project for sure. And this newsletter will be here for every twist and turn of its progress.
— maxwell
P.S. There’ll be no newsletter next week as I am taking a short summer break. I’ll see you back in your inbox in mid-August.
P.P.S If you want to treat me to a beer or two for my break, you can make a donation here. Every penny received for writing this newsletter is gratefully received — and sipped.
Need To Know
Milestones met at National Gallery
Over 1 million people in the UK have now visited one of the National Gallery’s touring exhibitions over the last decade. The milestone comes on the 10th anniversary of its flagship touring series The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour. An open call has now been launched to find four venues to host the 2025-27 iteration of the tour, which will see three masterpieces visit each partner. The first painting offered will be Monet’s The Petit Bras of the Siene at Argenteuil, a work which has left the National Gallery only once in the last 20 years.
Director Dr Gabriele Finaldi said that “It is part of our duty and our honour to look after these paintings and to bring them to where people are, not just expect them to come to us. That one million people have visited these exhibitions in the last decade proves the desire to engage with our collection is growing.”
The Gallery also announced that its just closed The Last Caravaggio exhibition was its 3rd most visited of the last decade. It saw the artist’s final painting displayed in the UK for the first time in 20 years, and 286,298 experienced the show over 95 days. (Read more)
“Monstrous” Stonehenge tunnel axed
The UK government has officially scrapped the controversial Stonehenge road tunnel plan, putting an end to project that has dragged on for years thanks to numerous legal challenges.
New Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves axed the project — that would have seen a dual carriageway tunnel built under the World Heritage Site — as part of cost saving measures she says are needed due to a financial “black hole” left by the last Tory government.
Opponents welcomed the cancellation. Tom Holland, president of the Stonehenge Alliance campaign group, said the “monstrous project…should never have got off the drawing board.”
But it’s a blow to English Heritage, who manage Stonehenge. They have long supported the plan, and just last week their new chief executive Nick Merriman threw his full support behind it, calling it “the last opportunity” to sort Stonehenge’s problems out “for a generation.”
The National Trust also criticised the decision, saying that “a solution is needed to remove the hugely damaging surface road that blights Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape”. (Read more)
No shushing allowed!
Young children are being encouraged to be as loud as they like on museum visits this summer in a new initiative from Art Fund.
The UK art charity found that 52% of parents worry about feeling too uncomfortable or embarrassed to take their children on visits, with 47% also being concerned that their children would be too loud or excitable.
Kids Aloud will now see 20 major museums offer dedicated hours where children “will be allowed to be their usual energetic selves in a ‘shush-free zone’”. Taking part is the Barbican, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and Cardiff’s Ffotogallery.
Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman says she hopes that the Kids Aloud initiative “will encourage parents to bring their little ones and let them run free in an environment where noisiness and expression will be actively encouraged!”
Interestingly, the National Portrait Gallery listed hours where children can be as noisy as they like are every single normal opening hour. Will be interesting to see how other visitors feel about that one! (Read more)
News from the UK
Peter’s Portrait 🏳️🌈 | A never-before-seen, full-length portrait of LGBTQ+ and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been donated to the National Portrait Gallery and is now on display as part of the History Makers display. It’s their first ever painted portrait acquisition of Tatchell. The unveiling marks the NPG’s continuing drive to better reflect the diversity of the UK since it reopened last year. (Read more)
Alan’s Avatar 🤖 | An AI-powered, life-sized version of Alan Turing is being created for Bletchley Park, the once-secret home of Britain's World War Two codebreakers. Visitors will be able to ask 'Turing' — known as the father of artificial intelligence — questions about his life and work. Made in collaboration with tech company 1956 Individuals, Bletchley Park says the technology involved is a "world first". (Read more)
Pêl-droed ⚽️ | Wrexham has received more than £2.7m in National Lottery funding to help create Wales’s first national football museum. It will celebrate the story of grassroots and professional Welsh football by showcasing memorabilia dating back centuries. The funding is part of the ongoing project splitting the Wrexham Museum into a refurbished museum for Wrexham, and the football museum. This money will allow the purchase of a significant private collection. (Read more)
Culture’s promise 🚀 | Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has promised to use the cultural and creative industries to drive Britain’s economic renewal. In her first major speech — at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and attended by industry figures — Nandy said “we neglect [cultural institutions] at our cost” and that the government is “putting rocket boosters under our growing industries” including heritage and tourism. Nandy cited the nearby People’s History Museum as her favourite. (Read more)
News from around the world
France 🇫🇷 | An outrage storm erupted after last week’s Paris Olympics opening ceremony. It centred around a scene that some said evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. The Catholic church in France said it deplored the vignette for its “derision and mockery of Christianity”. Donald Trump called it “a disgrace.” Organisers apologised for any offence, but those involved have reported a torrent of online hate has been directed at them which the police are now investigating. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | A long-lost Andy Warhol portrait of Blondie singer Debbie Harry from 1985 has been unearthed after 40 years of mystery over its whereabouts. The image — generated on an early home computer — has been discovered to have been hanging in the rural Delaware home of a former Commodore technician for four decades. The only other known version of the image is in the possession of Harry. The newly-found image will now be auctioned. (Read more)
China 🇨🇳 | Paris’ Musée Rodin will open its first international branch in Shanghai this September. Known as Centre d’Art Rodin, the revelation of the opening date is the first update on the project since the initial announcement in 2019. The project is backed by the French Ministry of Culture with private funding from French-Chinese collector Wu Jing. It was originally planned to open in Shenzhen. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | A suspect was arrested and charged with a hate crime after the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum saw their home vandalised. Red paint was splattered on the front doors and windows of the home of Anne Pasternak in June, and a banner was hung calling her a “white-supremacist Zionist.” Other suspects are still being sought as other houses targeted were board members of the museum. The Brooklyn Museum said it believes it's "crucial to distinguish between peaceful protest and criminal acts." (Read more)
Best of the rest
Scheme grows | 100,000 people have now visited Kew Gardens through its £1 concession ticket for those on low incomes. Its success means it’s being expanded to also welcome asylum applicants and for people to bring 4 guests. (More)
No money | A project to create a world-class archive facility for Historic Environment Scotland’s collections — spanning over 5,000 years — has been axed due to “escalating costs.” (More)
Sudden shutting | Essential and urgent repair work on its roof will see Brighton Museum shut for most of the school summer holidays. The £2m emergency project begins next week, funded by the UK government. (More)
Items repatriated | London’s Horniman Museum will transfer ownership of 10 objects to the Warumungu community in Australia. They include a stone axe and two boomerang, and items have already been removed from display. (More)
Good luck | The shortlist for the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize — the UK’s biggest architecture award — has been revealed, and the reimagining of the National Portrait Gallery has made the cut. It’ll compete with projects including the Elizabeth Line. (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has opted for Lowry paintings in her ministerial office — and voiced distaste for more abstract works.
📊 Last week’s poll results | Do you like the London Museum's new pigeon logo?
❤️ LOVE IT 15% | 👍 Yeah it’s fine 15% | 👎 I dislike it 31% | 🤢 I HATE it 39%
— Still time to treat me to a beer on my summer break. 🍻 Donate to me and this newsletter here.
I don’t think London Museum were trying to please anyone. The pooing pigeon feels like it was crafted first and foremost to get people talking, to publicise the new brand. I think they fully expected people would mock it. If you go to their site now, the pigeon is lacking its excrement. I think the idea is that they’ll play about with the logo, like a Google Doodle, and the poo was just a first, publicity generating iteration. That’s my take anyway.
Keep up the good work Maxwell. Very much enjoying your newsletter.