UK museums face 'grim outlook', Art Fund warns

Δημοσιεύθηκε: 3 Απριλίου 2015 - 10:51

Britain's museums are suffering an unseen erosion of skills, investment and resources as the effects of "swift and stringent cuts" are felt in areas hidden from the public gaze, the head of the UK's biggest art fundraising charity has warned.

Stephen Deuchar, chief executive of the Art Fund, said reductions in public funding and the expectation of further cuts under a future government, had left museums and galleries facing a "grim outlook".

Public perceptions had yet to catch up with the gravity of the situation, he said, since big capital investments funded by the National Lottery during the past 20 years had transformed the appeal of many museums. But while their fabric had been rejuvenated, operational funding had dropped sharply since the financial crisis.

"Museums are ironically better than ever before, better presented, better run and in better condition. It's just at the point where we ought to be reaping all the benefit from that investment that revenue funding is being cut back at a worrying pace."

Since 1903 the Art Fund has used its members' donations and persuasive powers with philanthropists to secure great works of art for the nation's museums and galleries.

With annual membership income of £5.6m, its national campaigns in recent years have included the safeguarding of the Wedgwood Collection, the acquisition of a Van Dyck self-portrait for the National Portrait Gallery and the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard for Birmingham and Stoke museums.

Mr Deuchar announced the charity's latest fillip: the £1.56m purchase, with other donors, of the threatened Minton Archive, a treasure house of often "breathtakingly beautiful" designs and drawings spanning 200 years of British industrial history.

Mr Deuchar, previously director of Tate Britain, has overseen strong growth in the Art Fund's membership during his tenure, with a 52 per cent rise in numbers to 117,000 since 2010. The 112-year-old charity has also embraced the digital era with enthusiasm, setting up Art Happens, a crowdfunding platform to help museums raise funds for specific exhibitions, conservation projects or art purchases.

But it also uses its position to influence the public debate on cultural policy. Mr Deuchar believes the loss of curatorial posts, as well as a lack of funds for those that remain, is threatening museums' role as places that acquire art as well as look after it, with serious long-term consequences.

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>He recalled his own experience at the National Maritime Museum in the 1990s, where the morning would begin with colleagues flicking through auction catalogues, earmarking works they thought might make potential additions to the collection. But as today's curators lost the acquisitive habit, the result was "undermining the whole idea of the constant improvement of the national collections", he said.

In response, the Art Fund has set up the New Collecting Award, which asks promising curators to make the case for a particular acquisition, and gives each of the winning five professionals between £40,000 and £60,000 towards their purchase as well as mentoring in how to handle the art trade. "You don't get great acquisitions if you don't have great curators," he said.

Mr Deuchar was speaking a week after the top museum-funding bodies and sector associations released a tough public statement threatening the withdrawal of funding and grant status for bodies that ignore the rules on disposing of museum works in favour of short-term financial gain.

Strong public passions were aroused over Northampton Museum's sale last year of its ancient Egyptian statue, Sekhemka, for £15m - now the subject of a temporary government export ban - and Croydon council's disposal in 2013 of a collection of rare Chinese ceramics.

Mr Deuchar said local authorities were "usually" to blame for such disposals, "which we feel are short-changing their own constituencies let alone [evading] their professional responsibilities".

He has a new ally in Lord Smith, culture secretary under Labour, who last year succeeded City veteran Sir David Verey as Art Fund chairman. A key part of the job is bringing order to the 18-strong board meetings in which the assembled art experts determine which artworks deserve the charity's help. But Mr Deuchar believes Lord Smith's value will extend well beyond the procedural.

"As a former culture secretary he knows about funding, he knows about export review systems, he knows the government machinery back to front and the tough choices that have to be made."

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