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Annual Report for 2016/17

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ART FUND IN 2016/ 17 We know these are difficult times for UK museums and that, for many, the future looks uncertain. Over the past year our work – not just as a funder, but also as an advocate of and ally to arts organisations – has never seemed more important, or more crucial. Art Fund is an independent charity and does not receive government funding. In 2016 our income totalled £15.2m (up from £14.8m in 2015) and so, rather than cutting back, we began investing in activities to extend our membership and increase the funds we raise. This will mean we are able to do even more to support museums in the years ahead. In 2016 we gave over £4.7m in acquisition grants to help museums build their collections, 75% of which were awarded to organisations outside CONTENTS London. We have seen our support have a real impact. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, for example, became the first UK museum to own a work by a Czech Surrealist, Toyen’s The Message of the Forest, while the Bowes Museum acquired a rare and important picture from the workshop of the pioneering painter Dieric Bouts the Elder that would have otherwise been sold to a buyer abroad. Page 2 BUILDING COLLECTIONS We also continued to fund development opportunities for curators across The acquisitions we support the UK, fulfilling a need that many museum budgets cannot meet. This year we helped curators travel to six of the seven continents to carry out Page 18 DEVELOPING TALENT 3 vital research for their exhibitions or collections through our Jonathan 4 Ruffer Curatorial Grants programme. Our support has also enabled more The opportunities we offer curators than 400 other curators to receive training to further their skills. SUPPORTING MUSEUMS But grants are not the only way in which we support museums. This year Page 34 we collaborated with Royal Museums Greenwich on a public campaign to The ways we help museums do more save the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I for the nation; we helped museums crowdfund for an exciting range of projects through our specialist Page 46 CONNECTING COMMUNITIES platform, Art Happens; and we supported touring programmes that The networks we foster brought great works of art to venues nationwide. We don’t act alone. All we achieve is made possible by the hard work and Page 58 WORKING EFFICIENTLY dedication of the museums, organisations, artists and partners we work Extracts from our financial statements with, and the generosity of the 123,000 members and other donors who support our work. Together, we can meet the challenges before us. Lord Smith of Finsbury Chairman, Art Fund 5 6 BUILDING 2016 COLLECTIONS IN NUMBERS We award more than £4m in grants We helped museums across the UK buy 246 every year to help museums make new works of art, objects or collections acquisitions. Our support ranges anywhere from a couple of hundred to hundreds of — We gave 96 acquisition grants 7 thousands of pounds, and covers museum totalling £4.5m 8 objects of all types from throughout history. We also help to place gifts and bequests. — We awarded 75% of these grants to organisations outside London Why do we do this? Because we believe art has the power to — We supported works by 129 transform lives. A new acquisition does different artists or makers not just add depth, variety or colour to a museum’s collection. It also provides a new — We placed 113 works with 15 opportunity for each of us to be amazed, museums through our gifts and inspired, confounded or intrigued. bequests scheme BUILDING COLLECTIONS FROM £2,000 TO £2,000,000 Chloe Dewe Mathews, Shot at Dawn Numbers 14 & 22, 2013 Attributed to the workshop of Dieric Bouts Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry the Elder, St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child, c1440-75 During the First World War more than 900 British, Commonwealth, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle French and Belgian soldiers were executed for crimes of desertion or cowardice. At the time, senior officials believed this While Dieric Bouts may not be a household would prevent other soldiers from abandoning their posts and name, he is certainly one of the most jeopardising the stability of the army. remarkable 15th-century Netherlandish painters. This lovingly detailed devotional In 2013 photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews visited 23 locations painting – the only work of its date, Courtesy of The Bowes Museum where soldiers had been shot, taking pictures at moments as nationality and subject matter in a British public collection – shows 9 close as possible to the precise anniversary at which their deaths him to be a pioneer of the oil-painting technique and one of the first 10 ‘The acquisition of this occurred. With our help the museum has acquired two images Northern European artists to use single-point perspective. outstanding piece sheds from this thought-provoking series – commissioned to mark the new light on the museum’s centenary of the conflict – for its Peace and Reconciliation Gallery. In 2015 the government placed it under a temporary export bar permanent collection. We to stop it from going abroad to an overseas buyer. As well as a will now focus attention contribution of £260,000 we were able to offer further support by on our existing holding of Art Funded £2,235 purchasing the painting and then gifting it to the museum, so as to Netherlandish and Flemish paintings, and work to (total cost £5,670) take advantage of associated tax benefits. improve the display of this section of the collection.’ Art Funded £260,000 (with a contribution Bernadette Petti, curator, the Bowes Museum from the Wolfson Foundation) (total cost £2,095,815) © Chloe Dewe Matthews BUILDING COLLECTIONS FURNITURE TO FILM Courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery © Steve McQueen Fred Baier, Tetrahedron Toroid, 1995 Steve McQueen, Ashes, 2002-15 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge The Whitworth, Manchester It was Fred Baier’s grandfather who first inspired him to begin This video installation tells the story of Ashes, a young man from the making things, teaching him the basics of woodworking when he Caribbean who was tragically shot dead in a gang-related crime. was just a boy. Baier went on to study furniture design at college The initial footage of Ashes on his boat in Grenada was filmed on while shuttering concrete for the M6 during his holidays. a Super 8 camera in 2002. When McQueen returned to the island in 2013, he heard of the boy’s death and decided to make a second Since the 1980s Baier has been a pioneer of the transition from film documenting the construction of his tomb to play alongside the industrial to digital – in fact, he says he now uses computing at images of him smiling and laughing at sea. 11 every stage of design and development. This geometric tetrahedron 12 table is a perfect example of how he has been able to make The first piece by McQueen to join a public collection outside ‘This is a great work by practical use of digital tools. Presented by Sir Nicholas and Lady London, this is a significant acquisition for The Whitworth and an artist of remarkable Goodison through our gifts and bequests scheme, this is the 107th demonstrates its continued commitment to collecting artists’ film. power, insight and gift the couple have given In 2017 the gallery was also able to acquire Elizabeth Price’s K, subtlety, so it was an important moment for to the Fitzwilliam Museum through our Moving Image Fund scheme. us when we were able over the past 20 years. to acquire it. It will form a core part of our Black History Month Art Funded £71,000 (with a contribution Gift of Nicholas and Judith programme that we are from the Wolfson Foundation) Goodison through Art Fund developing with young (total cost £236,447) men – black and white – local to our part of Manchester.’ Mary Griffiths, senior curator, The Whitworth BUILDING COLLECTIONS LONDON TO CARDIFF Unknown maker, Elizabeth I cameo ring, c1600 Attributed to Jean Henri de Moor, pair of silver andirons, 1680-81 Victoria and Albert Museum, London National Museum Wales, Cardiff Worn to indicate allegiance and proximity to the queen, cameos A showy statement of wealth and elegance, French-style silver were often gifted to foreign monarchs or loyal servants by the court fireplace furniture was at the height of fashion in Britain during the – yet only a rare few survive in such remarkable condition as this. reign of Charles II. These andirons bear the coat of arms of Admiral Diminutively sized yet exquisitely decorated, it is one of the finest Edward Russell and his second wife, Lady Margaret Russell, who British rings of its date. were extravagant patrons of the arts during this period. In 1960 British collector Kenneth Snowman acquired the ring, As the finest surviving example of their kind, the andirons are of which he would loan frequently to the Victoria and Albert Museum key significance to the study of 17th-century decorative art. Offered 13 for display. Snowman’s son, Nicholas, presented the piece to the for sale to UK organisations after the government placed them 14 ‘These andirons say new V&A in 2016 through our gifts and bequests scheme as a symbol of under a temporary export bar, they have joined the National and perhaps unexpected his family’s connection with the museum, and to coincide with our Museum’s outstanding collection of silver on display in Cardiff. things about silver to our successful campaign to save the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I.
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