National Gallery visitor numbers still struggle
Gallery registered a modest 14% annual rise in 2023
This edition features: Record breaking Welsh museum cuts | Spanish museum directors sacked | Elton John’s $20 million auction
Happy Friday, happy St. David's Day, and happy start of March! What does this month have in store?
Well it’s a much quieter one for exhibition openings than February. The biggest shows rolling into town are Angelica Kauffman at the Royal Academy and Tropical Modernism at the V&A (both opening this weekend). But I’m told the free Women of the RNLI exhibition at the National Maritime Museum is definitely worth a visit, so I hope to do that soon.
Looking further afield, there are two big art Biennales opening this month. The 2024 Whitney Biennial kicks off in New York on 20 March, while the 24th Biennale of Sydney begins in a just over a week’s time. Suffice to say I won’t be attending either (unless some very generous patrons and/or PRs would like to get in touch — hit reply 😜). Alas if not, I will follow along on Instagram — which is just as good obvs.
And before we get onto this week’s news, a quick look back to February. I’m delighted to have over 130 new readers sign up to this newsletter (👋 hi!), and to have seen record views for an individual day, week and month for maxwellmuseums.com. Oh and a big thank you to the six readers who gave me a donation across the month, both as a one-off and as a monthly recurring. I appreciate each and every penny. And of course if you want to join them in supporting me and this newsletter, you can do so here.
Let’s do this!
— maxwell
Need To Know
National Gallery visitors rise — just
There was a modest uplift in visits to the National Gallery in 2023. Just over 3 million people came through the doors of the (admittedly partially closed) London venue — a 14% annual increase. The figures were released as the Gallery kicked off the year-long celebrations to mark its 200th birthday in May.
Yet these numbers are still expected to be below rises registered in other UK institutions. In the first half of 2023, England’s national museums were collectively tracking a 38% increase on the same period in 2022. Tate Modern was registering a 55% uplift, with the British Museum 48%. At the same point, the National Gallery was already at the lower end of the scale, seeing a 24% increase. So these final figures not only show a slow down in post-covid growth in the second half 2023, they also suggest other venues will have had to have experienced an even larger collapse for the Gallery to have made up much ground.
They also revealed that 952,551 visits were made to their major ‘highlights’ exhibition tour of Asia, which had stops in China, Hong Kong and South Korea. A further 154,202 saw their displays and exhibitions around the UK. In a nod to the fact the Gallery is one of the museums leading the field in its use of social media, it said there had been over 60 million views of its video content across all their channels. (Read more)
Record-breaking funding cut confirmed
The Welsh Government has confirmed it is cutting funding to Wales’ national museums by over 10% — and that it will do the same to the National Library of Wales and Arts Council of Wales. The cuts represent a £3m annual reduction in funds to Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.
Museum workers reacted to the government’s final published budget for 2024/25 by protesting outside the Senedd building. A spokesperson for Amgueddfa Cymru confirmed that the full 10.5% reduction “represents the largest funding cut in the museum’s history” and that it is now looking at “cost-saving options including changing operating arrangements, closing services, and potential job losses.”
It’s understood that a major restructure is already underway that will see around 100 roles made redundant, thought to mainly affect specialist expertise. Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, said they were “disappointed” the cuts would be going ahead. (Read more)
Spain’s sacking spree draws anger
There’s been protests and uproar at the controversial sackings of five museum directors by two conservative regional governments in Spain.
Poor performance and loss of trust have been cited as the reasons for the sudden dismissals of museum leaders in Andalusia and Valencia, including the Directors of the Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art in Seville and the Centre del Carme Contemporary Culture centre in Valencia.
The (now former) director of the latter institution will fight the alleged grounds of his dismissal — “serious breaches” in labour and administrative matters — in court. José Luis Pérez Pont had grown the centre’s annual visitors from 76,000 in 2016 to 331,500 in 2023. Hundreds of protesters gathered following his removal, and the Consell Valencià de Cultura, a consultative body of the regional government, believes the ousting reflected “political interference in culture.”
Questioned in the Andalusian parliament about the removals, the councillor for tourism, culture and sport, Arturo Bernal, said that the dismissed directors were putting forward “outdated models.” (Read more)
News from the UK
State Tate funding | Tate Modern should be 100% state funded according to the gallery’s new Director. But in an interview with the Evening Standard, Karin Hindsbo acknowledged this is “not how the world works.” Hindsbo — who started the role in September — said Tate Modern was “a public institution with a public mandate” and so should get all its cash from the government. She made clear though that she was realistic that this was not a possibility “even though you would like it to [be].” (Read more)
Hi Barbie! | A rare, first-edition Barbie from 1959 has been acquired by the Design Museum in London and will be the star object in their upcoming exhibition on the world’s most famous doll. Full details on this major show have been revealed this week, including that there will be over 250 objects and 180 dolls on show. The announcement makes page 3 in 3 national newspapers today. (Read more)
Long Live King’s Gallery | Buckingham Palace’s art gallery will reopen in May as The King’s Gallery, with a new exhibition of royal portrait photography from the 1920s to the present day. Over 150 photographic prints including intimate portraits of the royal family will be shown. The exhibition will also offer new £1 tickets for those in receipt of Universal Credit. Later in the year, the Gallery will host a show on Renaissance drawing in Italy. (Read more)
Marble Arch Millennials | The new London outpost of the private Moca Museum — billed as a cutting edge art space for Gen Zs — will have a debut exhibition by *checks notes* Robbie Williams (last hit: 2012). The gallery’s owners have also said Instagram is the “new era we’re in.” So far, so Millennial. But they also said their new location was a “natural” choice as “Marble Arch feels like a gateway to some of the city’s most exciting happenings” which no generation of Londoner has ever thought. (Read more)
Tate’s Gallery Garden | The landscape around Tate Britain’s entrance on London’s Millbank is to be transformed into a new public garden. The project will be realised by Tom Stuart-Smith Studio with the Royal Horticultural Society, and is made possible thanks to a donation from the Clore Duffield Foundation who first supported the gallery in 1987. Foundation Chair Dame Vivien Duffield said she hoped “it will be the first step in creating a greener and more welcoming river front.” (Read more)
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News from around the world
USA 🇺🇸 | Oprah Winfrey is giving the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture another multi-million-dollar boost by donating to the Washington institution her 1 million+ shares in Weight Watchers. Winfrey has quit the weight-loss business’ board, and says the donation is to "eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight loss medications," a statement on her behalf said. (Read more)
Latvia 🇱🇻 | Latvia's president has called a Molotov cocktail attack on the country’s Museum of Occupation “an attack on the Latvian state.” A suspect has been detained for the crime, which saw the weapon thrown into the museum’s director’s office under cover of darkness. The museum — which was founded to remember the Soviet and German National Socialist occupations — said it was “a planned attack.” (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | New York’s Museum of Sex is being sued for $250,000 after featuring an image of an artist kissing her girlfriend in an advertising campaign. Julia Sinelnikova says they did so without her consent. She said “the museum was displaying my dating history to millions of people even though I asked them to stop.” The lawsuit quotes the museum’s founder saying “I am dumbfounded no one got your permission at the time” but later added her original request for $25,000 was too high. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | Frieze Los Angeles has kicked off. A-List celebs including Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson and brother Luke (me neither) were in attendance at the VIP preview yesterday. The scaled down fair also seemed to have scaled down opening price tags, but the headline sale on day one was Gladstone Gallery’s large-scale drawing by Richard Serra selling for $2m. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Eat off an Emin | Tracey Emin’s door sketches from the National Portrait Gallery can now be under your dinner. An exclusive bone china range featuring preparatory drawings of the major 2023 reopening commission has been unveiled. (More)
Thankfully some justice | The owners of the 18th century ‘wonky’ Crooked House pub — which burned down in suspicious circumstances — have been ordered to rebuild it after being issued an enforcement notice for unlawful demolition. (More)
Steaming anger | Transport heritage volunteers have reacted with fury to the revelation a 93-year-old steam engine which they had painstakingly restored to be enjoyed on UK railways, has been sold to Japan to be a Harry Potter exhibit. (More)
A-Team hire | Ed Sheeran’s Dad has revealed his superstar son hired out the ENTIRE Louvre Museum in Paris for them both on a recent trip to the city last year. “It is the only time I've been able to study the Mona Lisa without the crowds” his art curator dad said. (More)
Cold, cold cash | The hammer came down on the 900th item — including a $2 million Banksy — from Elton John’s collection which were being auctioned at Christie’s in New York. There was a total of $20.5 million in sales, more than double the estimate. (More)
Data is gold dust | Your organisation’s digital offer will generate data which could transform your fortunes. But do you know how to find and use it? A session at the new Digital Works Conference will tell you. (Learn more)*