Summerfield, Angela (2007). Interventions : Twentieth-century art collection schemes and their impact on local authority art gallery and museum collections of twentieth-century British art in Britain. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City University, London) City Research Online Original citation: Summerfield, Angela (2007). Interventions : Twentieth-century art collection schemes and their impact on local authority art gallery and museum collections of twentieth- century British art in Britain. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City University, London) Permanent City Research Online URL: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/17420/ Copyright & reuse City University London has developed City Research Online so that its users may access the research outputs of City University London's staff. Copyright © and Moral Rights for this paper are retained by the individual author(s) and/ or other copyright holders. 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'INTERVENTIONS: TWENTIETH-CENTURY ART COLLECTION SCHEMES AND THEIR 1l\1PACT ON LOCAL AUTHORITY ART GALLERY AND MUSEUl\1 COLLECTIONS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH ART IN BRITAIN VOLUME) Angela Summerfield Ph.D. Thesis in Museum and Gallery Management Department of Cultural Policy and Management, City University, London, August 2007 Copyright: Angela Summerfield, 2007 Author: Angela Summerfield Degree: Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 University: City University, London: Department of Cultural Policy and Management Title: Interventions: Twentieth-Century Art Collection Schemes and their Impact on Local Authority Art Gallery and Museum Collections of Twentieth-Century British Art in Britain ABSTRACT In the twentieth century, collecting became a core activity of local authority art galleries and museums in Britain. A key feature of these art collections was the representation of Twentieth­ Century British Art. The aim of this study is to examine, for the first time, this development as a broad cultural phenomenon, through the distinctive roles played by central government-funded, and independent national and provincial art collection schemes. The central government-funded art collection schemes are the V. & A Purchase Grant Fund, War Artists' Advisory Committee and the National Heritage Memorial Fund; and the national loan and exhibition schemes offered by the Tate Gallery and the Arts Council. Independent schemes are more numerous and varied. These were administered by the National Art Collections Fund (now the Art Fund), Contemporary Art Society, Scottish Modem Arts Association, Contemporary Art Society for Wales, Henry Moore Foundation and Gulbenkian Foundation. In addition, there were the independent national loan and exhibition schemes offered by the Museums Association, Peter Stuyvesant Foundation and Alistair McAlpine and provincial schemes based in Manchester (Charles Rutherston Loan Scheme), Cardiff (National Museum of Wales Loan Scheme), Liverpool ('John Moores' competition-exhibitions) and Bradford ('International Print Biennale' competition-exhibitions). Given the geographical coverage, historical scope and focus of this study, a substantial body of published and unpublished literature was consulted. The wide-range of sources examined included institutional histories, biographies and studies of Twentieth-Century British Art; permanent collection and exhtbition catalogues; newspaper, journal and magazine articles, curatorial records and correspondence; institutional records and correspondence; archival material and reports; and . correspondence and interviews. This entailed the discovery of much new material and the collation of substantial random data held by the Contemporary Art Society and the Gulbenkian Foundation This research seeks to show that local authority collecting of Twentieth-Century British Art was part of a nation-wide cultural pattern determined by certain ideas, theories and policies. Within this context, Section 1 identifies and discusses the nature and purpose of public art galleries, muscums and their art collections from 1845-1945. This momentous period in the museum movement in Britain, it is argued, sustained and generated ideas, theories and policies which encompassed national institutional hierarchies and their models of collecting, high art aesthetic standards and scholarship­ linked connoisseurship; the organic structure of museums; and multifaceted education. It concludes that during this formative period, an enduring cultural framework was established, from which emerged key collecting impetuses which are art history, patronage and heritage. Sections 2 and 3 examine the roles played by central government-funded and independent schemes, as a response to these issues, which also engendered and reinforced the collecting of specific types of Twentieth­ Century British Art. Section'4 surveys the local authority collections, which participated in the schemes, and concludes that 1957-79 was a crucial period in post-war collecting, which was both facilitated by the emergence of a considerable and dynamic network of commercial art galleries, and enhanced by national and provincial measures to decentralize the arts. A principal conclusion is that the future of modem (twentieth-century) and contemporary (twenty­ first-century) British art collecting, by local authority art galleries and museums, lies in its perception as part of a collective cultural enterprise, in which the intervention of collection schemes will, as in the past, play a fundamental role. Finally, there is also a strong argument for provincial institutions to feed into a national debate as to what is selected to represent both modem and contemporary British art practice in public collections in general. (n) CONTENTS VOWMEI ABSTRA CT.................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................... xi CHAPTER I:INTRODUCTION................................................. 1 SECTION) THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF PUBLIC ART GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND THEIR ART COLLECTIONS.......................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2:THE NATURE OF PUBLIC ART GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND THEIR COLLECTIONS •••••.•.•..•.••..•.•••.••••.... 12 2.1. National Institutions: Models of Collecting .•.••••..• 12 2.2. Growth, Progress and Survival. .••••...•..•..••.•.•.•..•.... 20 2.3. Central Government Policy ................................... 33 2.4. Local Authority Art Gallery and Museum Collecting Policies .................................................. 36 2.5. The Local and Regional Nature of Local Authority Art Galleries and Museums .................. 38 CHAPTER 3:THE PURPOSE OF PUBLIC ART GALLERIES, MUSEUMS AND THEIR COLLECTIONS............................... 40 3.1. Education................................................................. 40 3.1.2. Art Galleries, Museums and Aesthetics................ 45 3.1.3. Applied, Practical or Useful Knowledge................. 55 3.2. Art History ............................................................... 59 3.3. Patronage................................................................. 63 3.4. Heritage................................................................... 67 SECTION 2 CENTRAL GOVERNMENT-FUNDED ART COLLECTION SCHEMES..................................................................................... 70 CHAPTER 4:THE V. & A. PURCHASE GRANT FUND.......... 70 4.1. Origins..................................................................... 70 4.2. The Fine Art Category-............................................ 74 4.3. The B~ritage Issue................................................. 78 4.4. Modern British Art................................................. 79 4.5. The Oil Painting Category 1959............................. 80 4.6. 'Survey of Provincial Museums and Galleries' 1963.......................................................................... 89 (iii) 4.7. Creation of the M.G.C.N. & A. Purchase Grant Fund......................................................................... 93 4.8. Impact of the V. & A. Purchase Grant Fund.... 95 CHAPTER 5:SPIN-OFFS AND ADJUNCTS............................. 97 5.1. War Artists' Advisory Committee.......................... 97 5.2. National Heritage Memorial Fund ......................... · 98 5.3 Tate Gallery Five-Year Distribution Schemes .•••••••••• ~................................... •••••••.•••••••••.•• 101 5.4. Arts Council Art Collection..................................... 102 SECTION 3 INDEPENDENT ART COLLECTION SCHEMES................... 105 CHAPTER 6:IN'TRODUCTION................................................. 105 CHAPTER 7:THE NATIONAL ART COLLECTIONS FUND 108 7.1. Origins..................................................................... 108 7.2. Aims......................................................................... 111 7.3. The Modern Art Fund and Collection Schemes.... 114 7.4. Contemporary Art Initiative 1992........................