'Violent attacks' sees National Gallery protect 100s of paintings
PLUS: National Gallery eyes multi-million-pound expansion too
This edition also features: Museum of the Year | National Museums Liverpool strikes return | Leonardo da Vinci biopic in works
Happy Friday
Lot’s of online ‘discourse’ this week on museum admission charges after two big pieces on the subject were published. One in the Sunday Times and one in the Art Newspaper.
The gist is — unsurprisingly — that museums and galleries are broke, and reintroducing entry fees could possibly shore up their finances.
There’s lots that can be said about this subject, but for space reasons I’ll dive straight to my main reason why the answer is surely no: they don’t make financial sense.
Much of the grant-in-aid received by national museums in the UK is to actually make up for the loss of funds from no entry fees. The state pays for free entry. If charges were reintroduced, there is no way the government would maintain the same level of funding. So many millions will be swallowed up plugging that gap from the off.
Millions will also be needed to counter the reductions in secondary spend and donations. Add to that the new administration costs for charged entry. Pretty quickly it’s clear how much of a deficit fees will need to fill before getting near to adding to the coffers.
“But it works for the Louvre!” Yes, but the world’s most visited museum still gets 35% of its income from the state to keep it operating. PLUS it has €335m endowment thanks to its deal with Abu Dhabi, which is going to fund the museum to the tune of €400m over 30 years. The Met? It’s endowment is $4bn!
It really is THAT expensive to keep these institutions running, and charging “a fiver” a pop is really not going to cover it.
And it’s all very well pointing to the millions of foreign visitors the British Museum and Tate Modern get as an example to how much money can be raised via admission (i.e. like the Louvre, tourists will always visit). But if I was the Imperial War Museum London (2023 visitor numbers: 841,000) or Tate Britain (1.1m) I’d be very worried about this model.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. POLL TIME.
Now let’s get into the news!
— maxwell
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Need To Know
Sainsbury Wing mark II
The £85m renovation of the Sainsbury Wing might be running a year late but the Director of the National Gallery has reiterated his commitment to a new project to expand the gallery’s London home that would cost “hundreds of millions of pounds.”
In an interview with the Art Newspaper to mark the Gallery’s bicentenary next week, Gabriele Finaldi said they had carried out initial studies on demolishing the neighbouring St Vincent House to replace it with a new wing “almost as large as the Sainsbury Wing.” This is despite visitor numbers remaining hugely sluggish. Finaldi insisted that 2023’s 3.1 million visitors — down from 2019’s 6m — was “not disappointing.”
Finaldi also revealed that they have had to make the “costly” move to glaze “several hundred” paintings for the first time in order to protect them from attacks from climate protesters. He said last November’s attack where Just Stop Oil protesters took hammers to the Rokeby Venus “involved an exceptional level of violence” and that it marked “a gear shift to a more brutal and violent attack.” (Read more)
Renovations of the Year
Museums that have undergone huge transformations dominate this year’s shortlist for Art Fund Museum of the Year — the world’s biggest museum prize.
The revamped National Portrait Gallery and the rebranded Young V&A lead the London institutions, while Manchester Museum’s £15m overhaul also makes the cut. The Craven Museum in Skipton, Yorkshire, is on the list and was also recently renovated. Only Dundee Contemporary Arts hasn’t had a facelift, and gets the nod for 25 years in business this year.
The winning museum will be awarded £120,000 at a ceremony at the National Gallery in London on 10 July, while the runners-up will each be given £15,000.
Speaking to the Guardian, Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman said the nominees offer a moment “to look at what we stand to lose if local authorities and national government do not prioritise investment in heritage and cultural spaces.” (Read more)
Fresh Liverpool museum strikes begin
A fresh wave of strikes from the PCS Union will begin at National Museums Liverpool from tomorrow which the museum group’s Director has admitted will see a number of sites shut during weekends and half term from early May through to mid-July.
In an update, Laura Pye announced the expected closures “with a heavy heart” but reiterated the argument that “we simply cannot afford the £1,500 one-off cost of living Civil Service Payment, which PCS members believe they are entitled to.”
She said that what they had delivered in terms of pay and conditions since 2019/20 “has seen average wages increase by 14%” at a cost of an additional £2.4m a year. Extra holiday for staff is costing an additional £120,000, she added.
Cas Burgess representing the PCS Union, said the most recent offer from National Museums Liverpool was “derisory” and that “our members are struggling to pay their bills…£1,500 might not be much to a museum boss on thousands every month but it would be transformative to our members.” (Read more)
News from the UK
Unveiled 💕 | A significant new installation by Yayoi Kusama will be unveiled in Kensington Gardens in central London by the Serpentine next month. Details are yet to be revealed, but the news was announced as the gallery unveiled a new large-scale sculpture by German artist Gerhard Richter. STRIP-TOWER is based on the artist’s Strip Paintings series can now be seen until October in collaboration with the Royal Parks. (Read more)
Cheers 🍻 | Wales’s national museum of history is opening its own pub. The Vulcan Hotel will start pouring pints from next weekend at St Fagans in order to raise money for the cash-strapped museum group. The Vulcan was built in 1853 in Cardiff but has been reconstructed brick-by-brick at the heritage site. Chief Executive Jane Richardson said it will operate as a real pub and will “generate new income for us.” (Read more)
Charged 🌳 | Two men have been charged in connection with the felling of the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree. Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, both from Cumbria, have been charged with criminal damage both to the tree and to the adjacent Roman Hadrian's Wall. The tree was felled in September causing an international outpouring of shock and dismay. They’ll be in court on 15 May. (Read more)
Improved 📈 | Dorset Museum — which this newsletter reported in January was on the verge of closing as only a third of the projected visitors were coming after a £16m overhaul — has said that it’s just-closed Elisabeth Frink show has pulled it back from the brink. The exhibition — which cost £100,000 to stage — resulted in a 15,000 uplift to numbers. Museum executive director Claire Dixon said: "it just goes to show what can happen if you get the right exhibition to the right people." (Read more)
Exhibiting 🦁 | London Zoo is getting into the exhibition game to mark its 200th anniversary. A huge new show is planned for 2026 to celebrate the bicentenary of ZSL (Zoological Society of London) who run the attraction. They’ve now launched a nationwide callout for object donations to help stage the exhibition. They’re asking the public to submit everything from vintage zoo toys and historic tickets to correspondence and maps. (Read more)
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News from around the world
Italy 🇮🇹 | Pope Francis has become the first pontiff ever to visit the Venice Biennale. He toured the Holy See’s pavilion which is being hosted in a women’s prison to reflect His Holiness’ concern for society’s outsiders. The Pope met the 80 inmates, many of whom are involved in the exhibition, and stressed the power of art to address societal ills, adding “the world needs artists.” (Read more)
France 🇫🇷 | The ultimate symbol of the French Republic has been restored at the Louvre and is back on display in time for the Paris Olympics. Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People has had six-month’s of work to remove decades of varnish and grime. Eight layers were removed. Sébastien Allard, director of paintings said “We’re the first generation to rediscover the colour.” (Read more)
Italy 🇮🇹 | The European Court of Human Rights has upheld Italy’s right to bring back a contested ancient Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California. The Victorious Youth is one of the finest original Greek bronzes to have survived. The Court upheld a 2018 ruling that the work was rightly owned by Italy. The Getty disagrees and responded that it believes its “50-year possession” of the bronze was “appropriate, ethical and consistent with American and international law” adding it would “continue to defend its possession… in all relevant courts.” (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | President George W. Bush’s paintings are going on display at Disney World. Yes really. Portraits of Courage: A Commander’s Tribute to America’s Warriors will feature more than 60 paintings from Bush of “service members and veterans who have served our nation.” The veterans are said to have come to know Bush personally over the years. The paintings will be on show at the EPCOT Centre for A YEAR. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Congratulations | Gordon Seabright — a former CEO of the Eden Project — has been appointed the new leader of London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens, replacing Nick Merriman.
Action! | Andrew Haigh — the British filmmaker behind recent hit All of Us Strangers — is to direct a major new Hollywood biopic of Leonardo da Vinci. It’ll be adapted from Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed biography. (More)
Opening | The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow has become the latest London museum to offer new evening opening hours. From now until September it’ll be open until 8pm on Thursdays. (More)
Closing | Yet the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at UCL in London is instead shutting up shop for the summer. It’ll close from 11 May until August while essential building works are carried out. (More)
Booming | The Chanel exhibition at the V&A — which closed in March — resulted in the doubling of member numbers for the museum, according to Director Tristram Hunt. He said it was “a vital source of future funding.”
Ace | Tennis legend Venus Williams has been announced as the host of a new Carnegie Museum podcast on art and the environment. Dropping next month, it accompanies their photography exhibition Widening the Lens. (More)
👀 Last week’s most read news | Historic moment first memorial statue to the late Queen is unveiled on what would have been her 98th birthday — featuring her beloved Corgis
📊 Last week’s poll results | 58% of you said you HAVE left an exhibition before the end because it was too busy.
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