Hartwig Fischer's new job
Saudi Arabia beckons for former British Museum Director
This edition also features: National Gallery’s £95m | Young V&A wins | Culture wars era “is over”
Happy Friday.
Well, summer in the UK this year is… disappointing. To put it mildly.
Have we had even three days of consecutive sunshine? No. Have you had three consecutive days of putting the heating on, I’d bet good money on it. Plus it’s rained. A lot.
So what’s the answer? Go to a museum of course!
While even I hesitate to head indoors during the summer months, this rubbish season means you can — and tbh, should — head to an exhibition.
So what do I recommend? Well, a lovely show of Grayson Perry’s tapestries inspired by Hogarth’s A Rakes’s Progress has just opened at Pitzhanger Manor. I saw a preview this week and like any visit to the west London mansion, it’s a joy.
The story of the lives of Henry VIII’s six queens has opened at the National Portrait Gallery, and is worth a visit for it being the first historical portrait exhibition since the gallery reopened. Michelangelo: The Last Decades is about to close at the British Museum too.
Further afield, Newlands House Gallery in Sussex has just opened a new exhibition on Leonora Carrington which is getting rave reviews. Henry Moore in Miniature at Bath’s Holburne Museum is a survey of Moore’s sculptural output from his earliest works through to his last years, in which nothing is more than 30cm in size. And of course, there’s still the 12 venues hosting masterpieces from the National Gallery collection as part of their National Treasures birthday celebrations. Ikon’s showing of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self Portrait is brilliant.
And on the small chance the weather does improve, you can get an outdoor museum fix at the Natural History Museum’s £21 million new gardens. You can explore 2.7 billion years of the planet, with the wind in your face. Just hopefully not the rain.
— maxwell
PS read to the end to tell me your 2024 exhibition-going habits
Need To Know
National Gallery hits £95m
The National Gallery has hit its target in the largest fundraising campaign in its history. A total of £95 million has been raised to support its bicentenary projects and celebrations.
The target was reached with a £5m donation from the newly-launched Julia Rausing Trust, which has been set up by Julia’s husband Hans Rausing following her death in April. Julia and Hans Rausing have been Britain’s leading arts and heritage philanthropists, giving £330 million over the past decade.
The new grant to the National Gallery will go towards creating a new underground link between the Wilkins and Sainsbury buildings, as well as an artist in residence studio and a seminar room in the new Research Centre. Director Gabriele Finaldi said “this latest grant to honour Julia's memory enables us to look to the future, to a Gallery that serves its visiting public better.”
The Julia Rausing Trust will donate £100m in its first year. Other recipients today include Gloucester Cathedral, which gets £1m to fund repairs. (Read more)
Cardiff museum’s emergency cash
£1.3m in emergency cash has been given to the National Museum Cardiff to fix major structural issues that have threatened to shut the building.
The Welsh Government has awarded the money after urgent talks with Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales who have for months said the collection was at risk due to faulty electrics and a leaking roof. Yet the museum group said it needs £30m over six years to overhaul the building. The government’s money is part of a £3.7m package to support a number of at-risk Welsh cultural institutions.
But the move means plans to build a Museum of North Wales and a new venue for the the National Contemporary Art Gallery for Wales have been ditched.
Welsh culture secretary Lesley Griffiths said the funding is a “very small amount” in the face of all the challenges museums face, but that it was “all I can find this year.” A voluntary severance scheme is currently underway at Amgueddfa Cymru after the government imposed its largest ever funding cut on the group. (Read more)
“Joyful” Young V&A scoops prize
Young V&A has been named Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024.
Coming just days after its first birthday, the East London museum dedicated to young people scooped the world’s largest museum prize at a ceremony at the National Gallery.
The culture secretary Lisa Nandy — just days into her new job — praised the museum for its “hard work to create a unique space dedicated to young people." Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund and chair of the judges, said it had achieved its brief to be “the world’s most joyful museum” after its £13m rebirth from the Museum of Childhood.
Young V&A said it would invest the £120,000 prize money in their local community programme, working with some of the country’s most deprived children. They want to expand its reach along the Thames Estuary.
The other nominees were Craven Museum in Skipton, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Manchester Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. (Read more)
News from the UK
New management 🫡 | Lisa Nandy has promised that the “era of culture wars is over” in her first speech as culture secretary. In a speech to staff at her new ministry — the Department for Culture, Media and Sport — Nandy said her plan was to prioritise celebrating British culture and stories rather than battling with institutions like her Conservative predecessors did. She also pledged to make culture more inclusive. (Read more)
Masterpiece saved ✨ | The V&A has thwarted the Met Museum’s attempt to buy a medieval ivory sculpture that the London institution had displayed for 40 years. Thanks to grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and others, they successfully matched the Met’s £2m purchase price, meaning it’ll stay in the UK for the nation. It was made possible thanks to a government export block. It’ll go back on show in September. (Read more)
Hear hear! 👏 | Swindon's new museum and art gallery has opened to the public, four years after the old one shut down. £500,000 has been spent creating the new venue by converting the upper floor of the city’s Civic Offices. When asked how they could justify spending the money on a gallery in a cost-of-living crisis, Swindon's cabinet minister for culture said “Art and heritage in a time of crisis is a core British value, that's all the justification there is.” (Read more)
Conquering restoration 🏰 | A £2m conservation project to tackle problems caused by climate change at the National Trust’s Corfe Castle has begun. The castle — built by William the Conquer in the 11th century — will see specialist rope teams remove vegetation caused by summer droughts and wet winters. It’ll take three years and is the biggest restoration project at the castle for seven decades. (Read more)
News from around the world
France 🇫🇷 | Rouen’s world-famous Gothic cathedral has been saved from significant damage after a fire broke out in its spire. Scaffolding and plastic around the spire had caught fire but the metal structure itself — and all the cathedral’s irreplaceable artworks — were undamaged. About 70 firefighters and 40 fire engines tackled the blaze, but questions must be asked as to why another heritage site has caught fire during renovations, most famously, the Notre Dame in Paris in 2019. (Read more)
Norway 🇳🇴 | The man who sensationally stole Edvard Munch’s The Scream from the National Gallery in Oslo has died aged 57. Pål Enger’s 50-second heist — on the opening day of Norway’s hosting of the Winter Olympics — became one of the most famous art thefts in history and he became internationally famous for it. The Scream was recovered undamaged after Enger confessed he’d hidden it in a secret compartment in his living room table. (Read more)
Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 | Hartwig Fischer — who quit as British Museum Director due to the inside job thefts scandal — has a new job. He’ll lead Riyadh’s new Museum of World Cultures opening in 2026. The press release announcing the news said Fischer was a “visionary leader.” It makes no mention of his time at the British Museum. Fischer has already met with Hermann Parzinger, head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, to see how Berlin’s museums could collaborate with the new Saudi institution. (Read more)
Australia 🇦🇺 | Remember Tasmania’s Mona Museum fought (and lost) a gender discrimination lawsuit after it stopped men seeing works by Picasso and other major artists in its Ladies Lounge gallery? Well it turns out the Picassos — and all the other works — were fakes, forged by the curator and wife of the gallery’s owner three years ago. Art experts have slammed the gallery. One said it was “childish” while others called it a betrayal of the public. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Emperor’s eden | Construction workers in Italy have discovered a 2,000-year-old garden belonging to tyrannical Roman Emperor Caligula. It was discovered near the Vatican during a pedestrianisation project. (More)
Sad loss | Dorothy Lichtenstein — widow of acclaimed Pop artist Roy — has died aged 84. She shunned selling her husband’s estate, preferring to give it away. Over 1,000 works were donated to museums in the USA and abroad. (More)
Friends forever | Works by Sonia Boyce, Tracey Emin and Paula Rego will go on show at Birmingham’s Ikon gallery in an exhibition exploring the role of friendship in modern life. Artworks are drawn from the British Council collection and Frances’s macLYON gallery. (More)
Bronze beauty | Yayoi Kusama’s tallest ever bronze pumpkin sculpture has landed in London, and is sent “with love” to the city. It was unveiled this week by Serpentine and the Royal Parks and can be seen in Kensington Gardens until November. (More)
Coming soon | Hew Locke’s upcoming British Museum exhibition gets a subtitle: What have we here?. It’ll also feature newly commissioned sculptural works of figures who will ‘watch’ visitors in the show. (More)
Selling slowly? | Ticket sales for the National Gallery’s Van Gogh blockbuster seem…sluggish? Despite being available for two weeks, and with only the show’s first month on sale, very few slots — let alone days — have sold out. Could it be the £28 price? (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | Historic pillar knocked down 12 times in a decade
📊 Last week’s poll results | Do you think the new Labour government will be positive or negative for museums, art and culture in the UK?
✅ Positive 60% | ❌ Negative 4% | 🟰 No change 16% | 💰 Change only comes with more cash 19%
📊 This week’s poll |
— This edition has no sponsor, which means I’ve received nothing for writing it — and it took 6 hours. If you’ve enjoyed it or found it useful, please consider a small donation. Thank you.
love the newsletter, as ever. BUT, Sussex, 'further afield' - really? There is cultural life beyond thr M25!