English Heritage's largest ever gift
Over £11m is donated to the organisation, to help preserve endangered skills
Also in this edition: public appeal over portrait sitter, British Museum stabbing latest, Istanbul Biennial controversy, Swiss museum worker jailed, new Historic England Chair
Happy Friday.
This week I have mostly been seething. The sorry story of the Crooked House pub near Dudley, now just rubble, has enraged me. For those not up to speed: the Crooked House was a famous 18th century pub, beloved by locals and beyond due to being quite literally “Britain’s wonkiest pub.” It now lies in ruins following a devastating fire that tore through it at the weekend, and two days later a digger that miraculously had been brought onto the site hurriedly demolished the charred remains (without permission from the local council.) Police are treating the fire as arson. When firefighters turned up to tackle the fire, someone had deliberately blocked the access road. Carly Taylor, 34, and her husband Adam had only purchased the pub nine days before the blaze for “an alternative use.” The pub — which had survived recessions, industrial revolutions, pandemics, and even the Blitz — couldn’t survive a fortnight under new ownership.
It stings. Partly because I am from the West Midlands. While not from the same local area, and the pub didn’t play a role in my life (I may have visited once), its destruction reveals it was in my psyche. I knew it was part of Black Country history and therefore in some tangential way mine. But the real kicker is the sheer audacity, the brazenness, the huge up-yours to everyone the events of the past week have given. What does it say about the state of affairs where a 250 year old building with so much history (which is why I’m leading this newsletter with this story) can be razed to the ground almost in plain sight. That it can happen at all is awful, that it can happen because perpetrators seemingly fear no consequences is quite another. That the new owners had previously bought and gutted a pub just five miles away adds a level of farce that even Coronation Street writers would likely reject as asking too much disbelief to be suspended for viewers. (And they had a tram fall on Rita’s Kabin.) And yet there we all were, watching on as the media reported the multiple unfolding tragedies that befell this crooked but beautiful part of our shared history. And yet still they came. And yet still it’s gone. You wouldn’t bet it wouldn’t happen again.
Maxwell
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Need To Know
Knife attack at British Museum
A visitor waiting in the queue to enter the British Museum was stabbed on Tuesday. The man accused of the attack appeared in court yesterday.
Brady Wilson, 37, was arrested on Tuesday shortly after Zhung Tiang Wei, 36, was stabbed in the arm. Wilson, of no fixed abode, appeared in court charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Wei, and three charges of possession of an offensive weapon. It is said Wilson was carrying three black handled knives and two 10-inch kitchen knives at the time of the incident, which happened about 10am. He was remanded in custody.
The British Museum was evacuated and shut to the public in the aftermath of the stabbing, as police and paramedics assisted the wounded man. It reopened “with raised security including a heightened search operation” according to a statement. Museum Chair George Osborne offered thanks “to our security team and other BM staff, who reacted quickly, with the police.” (Read more)
Elsewhere at the BM
A busy week for the British Museum. More than 80 figures from the heritage, arts and climate fields have called on Director Hartwig Fischer to remove oil giant BP’s name from the museum’s 300-seat lecture theatre. Signatories included Katherine McAlpine, Director of the Brunel Museum, English Heritage’s Collections Conservator Alice Tate-Harte, and Florence Schechter, Director of the Vagina Museum. (Read more)
Also this week, poet and translator Yilin Wang has agreed to settle their copyright and moral rights case against the Museum for the uncredited and unauthorised use of Wang’s translations in the current China’s hidden century exhibition. The British Museum has agreed to pay Wang an undisclosed settlement fee, which covers a licence fee as well as an additional payment of equal value for Wang to distribute to causes of their choice. The translations — which had been removed after the issue came to light — will be reinstated.
The British Museum acknowledged it currently does not have a policy specifically addressing the clearance of translations, and will now carry out a review. (Read more)
News from the UK
Mystery sitter | Royal Museums Greenwich is appealing to the public to help identify the sitter in one of their new acquisitions. The 1945 painting is the museum group’s only portrait of a female world war naval officer, and it’ll go on display in a rehang of the Queen’s House. Now staff hope someone will recognise the woman depicted. (Read more)
Parting ways | Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum has cut ties with Sir David Adjaye’s firm following misconduct and sexual assault accusations made against the architect. But Adjaye’s designs will still be used, with new architects hired for the £57m project. “We felt there were some risks in terms of continuing our contract” Director Laura Pye told the Financial Times. (Read more)
Major gift | £11.2 million has been donated to English Heritage — the largest gift in their history. The donation — from the Hamish Ogston Foundation — will enable a “groundbreaking apprenticeship programme” to preserve the skill of flint-working by passing the trade down to younger generations. English Heritage said a third of its historic buildings contain flint, but few skilled flint-workers remain. (Read more)
Famous fortress | The castle which hosted ITV's I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! is to be saved from literal collapse thanks to a £2.2m grant. The Grade I-listed Gwrych Castle in Wales can now be restored with the cash from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The castle's buildings are in "perilous condition following the pandemic" but will now “be returned to its former glory." (Read more)
Coming soon | Shoppers may soon be able to see masterpieces of modern art on London’s Oxford Street (presuming they can get through the TikTok rioters) as Dutch-based Moco Museum announced plans to open a third European gallery in a huge 1920s building in Marble Arch. Moca’s two current locations boast a combined 1 million visitors per year. (Read more)
News from around the world
Turkey | Controversy is engulfing the Istanbul Biennial as it’s been revealed organisers selected former Whitechapel Gallery Director Iwona Blazwick to organise the next edition, despite Blazwick sitting on the very advisory board to pick that same role. AND her selection also meant the rejection of the panel’s own unanimous preferred candidate. Blazwick’s selection prompted three of the panel’s members to resign. (Read more)
Switzerland | A till worker at Basel arts institution Fondation Beyeler has been sentenced to over 3 years in jail for stealing over $1 million of ticket sales. For over a decade the 54-year-old clerk used a variety of tactics to take money from the till, including selling tickets without noting the sale, and selling the same ticket twice. Investigators discovered she had used the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle. (Read more)
USA | A judge has ruled that Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation can now lend their masterpieces globally, heralding a new loan policy that goes against founder’s Albert C. Barnes wishes. But the policy states no more than 20 works from the collection — which includes Cézanne, Matisse and Renoir masterpieces — can be moved from their usual locations at any one time. (Read more)
Italy | Celebrations have met the return to Italy of 266 antiquities from the United States, including Etruscan vases and ancient Roman coins and mosaics that had been looted and sold to U.S. museums and private collectors. The returned items include artifacts recently seized in New York from a storage unit belonging to British antiquities dealer Robin Symes, and 65 objects from Houston’s Menil Collection. (Read more)
Best of the rest
🔗 Art couple Idris Khan and Annie Morris will be the next artists exhibiting at Pitzhanger Manor in West London. Over 30 works will explore emotion, time, and memory.
🔗 Making sure your museum or heritage site is equipped to meet the needs of today's digital-savvy visitors is hard. If you're worried your venue is being left behind, ATS wants to ask you this question.*
🔗 A vending machine offering works by local artists has been unveiled at Coventry’s Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, in what is thought to be a UK first.
🔗 After welcoming museum visitors for nearly two decades, Manhattan’s famous Concorde jet took a barge ride down the river to get some TLC.
🔗 Lord Mendoza is the new Chair of Historic England. In 2017, the Tory Peer led two government reviews into the UK’s museums. In 2020 he led the COVID Culture Recovery Fund.
🔗 We the Museum — by Better Lemon Creative Audio — is the podcast for museum workers. The latest episode looks in-depth at the newly-opened First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.*
*This is sponsored content
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