The former director of three of Britain’s most important museums has called for the National Gallery to lift its longstanding cut-off date of about 1900 for its collection because it suggests “painting died then as a great art form”.
Julian Spalding, who has headed public collections in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, argued the National Gallery could, in its bicentenary this year, “resuscitate the great art of painting” by hanging pictures by David Hockney and other “great artists” alongside old masters.
He told the Guardian he was throwing down a direct challenge to the National Gallery. “I feel very passionate about it. The bicentenary is a fantastic occasion to do it. In 200 years’ time, every painting will be over 300 years old … They’re creating this terrible fossil.”
In a letter sent last week to Gabriele Finaldi, the director of the National Gallery, Spalding criticised its 1990s agreement with the Tate that 1900 should divide their respective collections. “[It was] as if painting died then as a great art form. This isn’t what happened. The art of painting non-representationally was brilliantly reinvented for our times, by Picasso and Matisse, of course, and many others.”
Spalding, who has also written to King Charles about the issue, argued that removing this cut-off could lead to “the renaissance of painting”. “Bringing the collection up to date will also naturally and most importantly widen the gallery’s representation of female artists and the art of many cultures, truly reflecting the nature of Britain and our world today.”
He added: “When it was founded, the gallery’s collection was on-going, with paintings being added when their greatness became apparent. This was often, understandably, a slow process, but sometimes surprisingly fast. The Gallery bought Van Gogh’s Chair only 34 years after it was painted.”
Although the National Gallery has held numerous exhibitions devoted to modern and contemporary artists – including Lucian Freud – these have been temporary, he said. “If the National Gallery begins again to collect great, lasting paintings of recent times, this will demonstrate to the world that the art of painting is still very much alive.”
In a 50-year career, Spalding established award-winning, innovative galleries and museum services, including the Ruskin Gallery, in Sheffield, and the Campaign for Drawing. Last year, he published his memoir, Art Exposed.
He proposed that modern and contemporary works could be transferred from the Tate to the National Gallery “easily and immediately, merely the cost of a van”, as happened in the past.
He wrote in his letter: “Half of these great paintings, the second, third, fifth, sixth, ninth and last are in store and not on public display [according to their website] … There are some publicly owned paintings that people should always be able to see. The National Gallery provides that opportunity.”
For future transfers, he suggested the public could become involved, voting for paintings, to stimulate annual debate.
The Tate said that, while the Spencer was in storage, the Braque, Chagall and Hockney works were due to be loaned to exhibitions in the coming months, the Vieira da Silva was in Tate Modern and the Neel was in Germany.
Richard Calvocoressi, an art historian and former Tate curator, said: “In principle, I think it’s not a bad idea. I’ve always thought the 1900 divide was pretty meaningless.”
Matthew Landrus, a leading art historian at Oxford University, said: “I agree that museums should have more options than strict limitations on time because the specific dates for historical periods are artificial.”
Sir Roy Strong, who, as the director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, staged landmark exhibitions, said: “The National Gallery has been extremely inventive in the last few years, sending pictures into shopping centres, for example. But everything is in such a state there is not the money or circumstance to achieve any major change of anything.”
Lifting the 1900 cut-off would be “a lovely idea”, he added: “Sooner or later, there’ll be a crisis and radical rethink of how exactly we look at the pictures of the past.”
Alex Kidson, a former curator of British art at the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, argued that the 1900 cut-off was “much too early”, but he expressed reservations about including contemporary artists. “Artworks achieve greatness because they’ve survived over time. Arguments about who is actually worthy of getting into the National Gallery are bound to increase. If you had a cut-off point of, say, 1945, that would be easier to administer.”
Michael Daley, the director of ArtWatch UK, the museums and galleries watchdog, said he had concerns. “All the National Gallery curators’ enthusiasms would drift even further away from their old masters collection.”
While the National Gallery declined to comment, the Tate said: “There are no plans to change the date of 1900 as the collection divide between the two museums.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
