Two-year delay to Tate Liverpool reopening
PLUS: British Council’s art sale “very bad idea”
Friday 07 February 2025 | news from museums, galleries, heritage and art, including:
£50m portrait to tour before leaving UK
Leeds’ Abbey House museum is saved
Brooklyn Museum to axe 10% of staff and scale back exhibitions
Happy Friday.
It’s been a very busy week for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) — see not one, but two stories below!
But this week also saw — almost certainly deliberately — the first interview since her appointment with the gallery’s new Director Victoria Siddall. Always a flagship moment for any new museum leader.
While a little light on insight into her vision for her tenure, she was unequivocal to the Telegraph interviewer when asked if entrance will remain free while she’s in charge: “Yes. It is such a unique benefit and if we believe as a country that it should be for all then welcoming them through the doors of a museum regardless of their means is a real testament to that commitment.”
She also praised the (outgoing) chair of trustees Sir David Ross, the Carphone Warehouse founder who helped navigate the gallery’s three-year refurbishment but whose term comes to end in October. “He has been very supportive of the NPG and the team” Siddall said.
How delighted the Director’s office must have been then, when — just five days after Siddall’s interview was published with the ink barely dry — they opened their copies of the Times to see Ross had penned a column headlined “Charge tourists for museums but let them shop tax-free.”
In it Ross praised President’s Macron’s recent announcement that British tourists will pay more to visit the Louvre, saying it was “interesting.” He concluded that Britain should reinstate tax-free shopping for tourists, and “ask them to chip in for our museums while they’re at it.” It prompted the Times’ Richard Morrison to declare in his own column today that “national museum leaders in the UK are starting to break ranks and call for charging.”
Back in her Telegraph interview, Siddall said she was “very mindful of how important the relationship is between the director and the chair”. Perhaps Ross is equally mindful — but perhaps he doesn’t have a Telegraph subscription. With friends like these etc.
— maxwell
ps. Thank you to everyone who messaged me about my interview with the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins (that landed in your inbox on Tuesday — catch up here). I’m so pleased so many of you found it interesting. It’s always brilliant to hear when you read and enjoy an edition.
And remember if you have an interesting story to tell — or think you know someone who does — get in touch with me. I’m always looking for interviewee ideas so I can bring you more behind-the-scenes info!
— I rely on readers like you to fund this newsletter. I don’t get paid to write this. If you value reading it, please consider making a donation. Thank you.
Top stories 🚨
British Council’s art sale “very bad idea”
Plans to sell off thousands of artworks in the collection of the British Council have been slammed by the Directors of Art Fund and the V&A.
The Council — which promotes British culture around the globe — says it will be forced to sell nearly 5,000 masterpieces if the government doesn’t intervene to reduce its £197m debt. (As reported in this newsletter last week).
Art Fund’s Jenny Waldman — writing in the Guardian — said “selling off the ‘family silver’ is not the solution.” She starkly warned that “the precedent that would be set if the British Council sells even a few high-value paintings would be extraordinary” as the “floodgates” would open for cash-strapped local authorities to follow suit.
Meanwhile the V&A’s Tristram Hunt said that the British Council’s plans were a “very bad idea.” But Hunt took particular aim at the UK government for treating the Council as a commercial entity. “Most other leading European nations regard their language and cultural institutes…as essential vehicles for soft power and global diplomacy — and fund them commensurately” he said. (Read more)
Two-year delay to Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool will remain closed until 2027 as the completion of its £30m renovation is delayed by two years due to lack of funds. The gallery closed in 2023 and was originally due to reopen in 2025.
Helen Legg, Tate Liverpool director, said raising money to pay for the project had “become more difficult” post-pandemic. “It's taken us a little bit more time," she told media on a tour of the building marking the end of the first phase of the architectural alterations to its building.
£18m has so far been raised to complete the refurbishment, including a £10m grant from the government's levelling up fund, and £6.6m from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The gallery said it’s now working on getting the remainder through donations and other foundations.
It added it hoped the renovation would allow the gallery to accommodate up to a million visitors each year, five times the number it was designed for when it opened in 1988. (Read more)
£50m portrait to tour before leaving UK
Joshua Reynolds’s famed painting Portrait of Mai — one of the most expensive acquisitions for a national collection in recent times — is to leave the National Portrait Gallery in April and won’t return until at least 2029.
The work — which was jointly acquired by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum in LA for a huge £50m in 2023 — is to tour to four cities in England over the next year, before heading to Los Angeles in time for the 2028 Olympic Games. It will head first to Bradford, the current UK City of Culture. The tour has been made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. (Read more)
Meanwhile, it was the Princess of Wales’ arrival at the NPG that caused a huge splash this week. HRH — Royal patron of the gallery — travelled by school minibus along with an enthusiastic school group of five-year-olds, and joined them on a trail around the galleries that encourages children to think about their emotions, linked to Catherine's early years education project Shaping Us. (Read more)
UK news 🇬🇧
Unearthed letters from history’s greats ✍️
An astonishing and previously unknown collection of 229 letters and papers by history’s most famous figures has been discovered in Waddesdon Manor’s archive. A selection — including papers from Elizabeth I, Mozart and an example of Lord Nelson writing with his surviving left hand — will be seen for the first time next month. Dame Hannah Rothschild — whose family foundation cares for Waddesdon — hailed them as “treasures hidden in plain sight.” (Read more)
Grenfell Tower film to tour 💚
Steve McQueen’s film installation Grenfell will tour for the first time, travelling across all UK nations. Made in response to the 2017 fire where 72 people died, it’ll open at Glasgow’s Tramway next month. The tour — coordinated by Tate — will end at Birmingham’s Midland Arts Centre in 2027. The film features the tower before hoarding was erected. The tour was (presumably unintentionally) announced on the day ministers told Grenfell families the tower would be demolished. (Read more)
Leeds’ museum saved 🤝
Campaigners are “overjoyed and relieved” that Leeds’ Abbey House museum has been saved after the city council U-turned on its cost-cutting closure plan. A “passionate” response to a consultation — which got 10,000 responses — showed the strength of opposition to the plans. But the council said “efficiency savings” would still need to be found, and that it is considering introducing an entry charge. (Read more)
Wales museum emergency closure 🏴
National Museum Cardiff reopened today after being closed for nearly a week due to emergency repairs. The museum shut suddenly on Sunday saying "immediate" maintenance work was required. Announcing the reopening, a statement blamed “a mechanical issue caused by a component failure in an isolated area of the building.” The museum ignored requests from BBC Wales to explain what that actually means in human language. (Read more)
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Global news 🌎
USA 🇺🇸
64 artworks by Edvard Munch have been gifted to Harvard University’s art museums by the late collectors Lynn Straus and her husband Philip Straus, who graduated from the famed university in 1937. With 142 Munch works (8 paintings and 134 prints) now in the university’s collection, it makes it one of the largest and most significant collections of works by the artist in the United States. Many of these recent donations will go in display next month. (Read more)
Canada 🇨🇦
After abandoning Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron’s designs for a new home, the Vancouver Art Gallery has launched a search for a Canadian firm to take over the project. They want a a smaller, simpler, and less-expensive design, after the original plan was axed due to ballooning cost, despite being in train for a decade. The gallery’s director said this new vision was “working within our means.” (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸
The Brooklyn Museum is to axe over 10% of its staff, scale back its exhibition programme and cut the pay of its senior leadership team as it battles a financial deficit that’s projected to reach $10 million by the summer. Director Anne Pasternak told staff today that “inflation has dramatically impacted our operating budget, adding millions of dollars to everyday costs and outpacing funding.” (Read more)
United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪
2024 was a record breaking year at Louvre Abu Dhabi, with 1.4 million visitors making it the biggest yearly attendance since opening in 2017. UAE National Day on 2 December also broke the record for the museum’s busiest day, with 15,477 people coming through the doors. International visitors made up 84% of total attendance, with visitors from China and Russia leading the way (12% each). (Read more)
Best of the rest
Banksy goat be-gone
One of Banksy’s animal artworks that appeared across London each day last summer has been removed. The goat which appeared in Kew has been taken away so the building it was painted on can be redeveloped. (More)
It’s Dame Tracey’s time
Dame Tracey Emin said she thinks “this is my time” after the King officially conferred her Damehood in a Buckingham Palace ceremony. Emin said people now understand the importance of the issues she made work about early in her career. (More)
Art critic’s Time Out
Two art journalism giants have quit their roles. Brian Ferguson has left as the Scotsman's Arts Correspondent after 12 years. While art critic Eddy Frankel departed Time Out after it “banned negative reviews.” (More)
Choo-choo-choose!
2025 marks 200 years of the modern railway, so Art UK is asking the public to vote for their favourite railway artwork from a list drawn from 94 public collections. Surely it’s Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed?! (More)
Take it off!
And in The Masked Singer news — no, come back! — the identity of Kingfisher was finally revealed. Artist Sir Grayson Perry was unmasked as the feathered character. He’d beaten a “cross" Macy Gray in the ITV competition. (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story
National Portrait Gallery accused of nepotism over Zoë Law exhibition
🔍 The week in a number
800 — the number of art exhibition reviews Eddy Frankel wrote during his time at Time Out magazine
📊 Last week’s poll results | Do you look forward to reading each edition of this newsletter?
— Yes. I can't wait to read each one 95%
— Nah. I'm not that fussed 5%
📊 This week’s poll
— I rely on readers like you to fund this newsletter. I don’t get paid to write this. If you value reading it, please consider making a donation. Thank you.