National Gallery's stunning £6.75m gift
National Gallery's stunning £6.75m gift
French teacher donates millions, twenty years after her death
Also in this issue:
Twitter’s demise. What should museums do?
Immersive David Hockney experience coming to London
Five years on, where the hell is Salvator Mundi?
Hello
Like the residents of Ramsay Street, I’m back. Did you have a good week?
I am still watching on aghast at what is happening to Twitter. If you were on the platform last night you’ll know it very much felt like the end of days as hundreds (thousands?) of employees quit rather than agreeing to Elon Musk’s bizarre ultimatum to staff. #RIPTwitter was trending.
What does the demise of Twitter mean for museums and galleries? It’s obviously not existential for them if it collapses, but it does mean that substantial, loyal audiences built up over many years are at very real risk of disappearing (literally) over night. It would slash the digital reach of many institutions, a metric trustees and funders focus on.
Museums and galleries should now use this moment to reassess their digital priorities. Whatever happens to Twitter, it’s time to shift some focus away from third-party platforms, where they are always going to be at the mercy of tech whims and headwinds. Just ask the news industry. Effort should now go into growing their own channels — email lists and website visitors — where the traffic and data they actually own.
Let’s see if Twitter survives the week.
Maxwell
News from the UK
A French teacher who died over twenty years ago has overnight become one of the UK’s biggest arts philanthropists. In an astonishing announcement, the National Gallery said it has received £6.75 million from the estate of Martha Bailey, who died aged 92 in January 2000. She owned 65 acres near Stockton-on-Tees, which was bequeathed to the National Gallery in her will but there was one key stipulation: the land could be sold only once planning permission to build houses had been secured. Permission has now been granted. Gabriele Finaldi, the gallery’s director, said he was “honoured” to receive her “unique and enormously generous legacy”. For comparison, the gallery received £19 million in donations in the whole of its last financial year; and billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik gave £5 million to the V&A in 2017 and got the Exhibition Road entrance named after him. Bailey’s legacy gift states that the money must be spent on acquiring paintings for the national collection, and this is despite there being no real evidence she was an art lover. An incredible story. Read more
London doesn’t have have enough immersive art experiences, said no one ever. That is, except the creators of a four-storey David Hockney light and sound space that will open in January. Hockney has collaborated for three years with the team behind the new venue — Lightroom — which promises that audiences will be able to travel through Hockney’s iconic work, rarely seen pieces and some newly created material. Not sure I want to see those iPad scribbles projected 20m+ high tbh. Read more
Robert Stephenson's world-famous Rocket locomotive is to be hidden from public view as the National Railway Museum shuts one of its most popular spaces for 18 months of restoration. The engine is usually on show in the York museum's Station Hall, but it’ll close in January so a new £10.5 million roof can be installed. Read more
The LBD — the little black dress — has been a fashion staple for a century. Now it’s going to be deconstructed in a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. The show — titled Beyond the Little Black Dress — will bring together more than 60 striking looks from collections and designers around the world. Iconic early pieces by Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Jean Muir will be juxtaposed with recent looks by ground-breaking contemporary designers and brands like Gareth Pugh, Simone Rocha and Off-White. Read more
News from around the world
A major new museum dedicated to the Swiss Surrealist sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti is to open in Paris. It’ll be housed in a former railway station on the banks of the Seine. The Giacometti Foundation, holders of the world’s largest collection of the artist, will create the new venue, which will open in 2026. Can’t wait. Read more
Another week, another priceless masterpiece targeted by climate protesters. This time they threw a black oily liquid on Gustav Klimt's painting Tod und Leben at the Leopold museum in Vienna, Austria. The activists were able to sneak the liquid past security at the entrance of the museum by placing it inside a hot water bottle that they then hid under their clothes, according to the group. Thankfully (again) the painting was unharmed. Read more
The home of one of Berlin’s best art galleries has been bought by the state. The federal and Berlin government’s joined together to purchase back the Hamburger Bahnhof museum and the adjacent Rieckhallen, following a lengthy negotiation with real estate developers. The $166 million sale of the former railway station complex has been described as “a great moment in cultural policy.” The gallery has also been renamed. It’ll now be called the Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of Contemporary Art to highlight its links with to the other Nationalgalerie sites. Read more
Banksy has confirmed that he is behind seven new artworks that have appeared in various locations across Ukraine. The artworks have been found in areas that have been particularly impacted by the Russian invasion, including Kyiv and its suburb of Irpin. Banksy confirmed being behind the pieces in a video posted on his Instagram. Read more
The curtain is up on the new Museum of Broadway, right on Times Square in the heart of New York's theatre district. The new museum covers groundbreaking shows from West Side Story to Cats, with details on who does what behind the scenes. Read more
And finally
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What’s the reason behind last week’s $1.5 billion record-breaking art auction at Christie’s? It’s because the super-rich are preferring to park their cash in paintings rather volatile stocks and crypto says the Times.
This art historian and climate activist says Just Stop Oil’s art attacks are becoming part of the problem.
You can now pay-what-you-can on Friday nights for the Barbican’s acclaimed Carolee Schneemann exhibition.
Tate says RELAX! Frankie Goes to Hollywood front man Holly Johnson is going to announce this year’s Turner Prize winner.
It’s exactly five years since ‘Leonardo da Vinci’s’ Salvator Mundi sold at auction as the most expensive work of art ever. It’s not been seen since. So where the hell is it?
Thank you Maxwell, I always enjoy reading your newsletters - witty and informative.
Amanda