COUNCI L *The Lord Cottesloe, G .B.E. (Chairman) *Wyn Griffith, O.B.E., D.Litt. (Vice-Chairman) T. E. Bean, C.B.E. *Benn W. Levy, M .B.E. Ernest Boden *Professor Anthony Lewi s *Sir William Coldstream, C .B.E. *Sir John McEwen of Marchmont, Bart ., *Joseph Compton, C.B.E. LL.D. Lady Dalton The Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax, D .L., Sir Emrys Evans, LL.D. LL.D. *Professor Gwyn Jones Miss C. V. Wedgwood, C .B.E. Councillor J . D. Kelly, C .B.E., D.L., J.P., Hugh Willatt C.A. *Member of the Executive Committe e SCOTTISH COMMITTE E Sir John McEwen of Marchmont, Bart ., LL.D. (Chairman) D. K. Baxandall, C .B.E. Councillor J. D. Kelly, C.B.E., D.L., J.P., Ernest Boden C.A. Charles Carter, F .M.A., F.S.A. Mrs. Eric Linklater Colin Chandler The Hon. Mrs. Michael Lyl e Esme Gordon, A.R.S.A ., F.R.I.B.A., Colin H. Mackenzie, C.M.G. F.R.I.A.S. J. McNaugh t Charles Graves William MacTaggart, P .R.S.A ., Hon.R.A. J. A . Henderson Hugh Marshall Miss Violet C. Youn g WELSH COMMITTE E Professor Gwyn Jones (Chairman ) S. Kenneth Davies, C .B.E. Thomas Parry, D .Litt., F.B.A. T. Glyn Davies Lady Amy Parry-William s Sir Emrys Evans, LL .D. Robert E . Presswood Alex J . Gordon, Dip .Arch., A.R.I.B.A. Alan Pryce-Jones, T .D. David Dilwyn John, T.D., D.Sc., F.M.A . Miss Frances Rees, O .B.E. Dr. Daniel Jones Ceri Richards, C .B.E. Mrs. Eileen Llewellyn Jones D. E. Parry Williams, D.Mus. Alun Llywelyn-Williams Iolo Aneurin Williams STAF F HEADQUARTER S 4 St. James's Square, London, S . W.1 (Whitehall 9737) Secretary-General : Sir William Emrys Williams, C.B.E. Deputy Secretary and Finance Officer : M. J. McRobert Art Director : Music Director : Drama Director : Gabriel White John Denison, C.B.E. J. L. Hodgkinson, O .B.E. Assistant Secretary : Eric W . White Accountant : D. P. Lund, F .C.A . SCOTLAN D Director : Dr. George Firth, O .B.E., I 1 Rothesay Terrace, Edinburgh, 3 (Caledonian 2769) Deputy Director : Donald Mather. WALE S Director : Miss Myra Owen, O.B.E., 29 Park Place, Cardiff, South Wales (Cardiff 23488 ) Deputy Director : David Peters . R2CcAor e COP Y T H E A R T S C O U N C I L ARTS COUNCI L 'OF GREAT BRITAI N REFERENCE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE LIBRARY, FIFTEENT H ANNUAL REPORT 1959-I96 0 4 ST . JAM E S' S SQUARE, LONDON, S . W . i A DESIGNED BY MISS G. DRUMMOND MCKERROW AND PRINTED IN ENGLAND A T THE BAYNARD PRESS CONTENTS Page 1 . THE PRIORITIES OF PATRONAGE 5 2. MEMBERSHIP OF THE COUNCIL AND COMMITTEES 1 5 3. DRAMA 1 7 4. OPERA AND BALLET 28 5. MUSIC 35 6. ART 47 7. POETRY . 52 8. ARTS FESTIVALS : ARTS ASSOCIATIONS, CENTRES AND CLUBS . 56 9. SCOTLAND 59 10. WALES 70 11 . NOTES ON THE ACCOUNTS 78 APPENDICES : Appendix A The Arts Council of Great Britain : Audited Accounts 80 Appendix B The Council's Committee in Scotland : Audited Accounts . 96 Appendix C The Council's Committee in Wales : Audited Accounts 102 Appendix D Arts Council Exhibitions held in Great Britain 108 Appendix E Subsidies from Local Authorities and Local Educatio n Authorities 110 Appendix F Help for the Arts from Independent Television and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 120 I THE PRIORITIES OF PATRONAG E SEVENPENCE A HEA D In the year 1959-60 the Government grant to the Arts Council* worke d out at slightly less than 6d. a head of the population of Great Britain: For 1960-61 the figure has been increased' to a little more than 7d. a head, an d is thus almost equal to the cost of making four miles of the new motorway, M1 . This is the highest grant the Arts Council has ever received, and it remains one of the lowest of its kind in Europe, even counting such small countries as Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. In comparison with France, Germany, Italy, Austria or the Soviet Union , Britain's annual expenditure on music, drama, ballet and opera is a ver y meagre item in its budget . The Arts Council grant has, indeed, been steadily though modestly increased year by year since 1946, the year in which the Arts Council was created by Royal Charter, but it has taken fifteen years for the grant to rise, at a gentle gradient, from £235,000 i n 1946 to its present level of £1,500,000 or 7d . per head. These figures and comparisons are offered in no spirit of grievance o r despair. Indeed, it might well be contended that the rate of growth o f public patronage for the arts in this country has been more rapid than our usual pace in adopting such novelties . But in any consideration of what th e Arts Council does, or fails to do, or ought to do, it is necessary to keep constantly in mind that it has only 7d. a head to spend on the job this year, and has had to get along on far less than that in the last few years . Yet, during that time, several national institutions of the arts have been created or developed, and many other providing bodies of the arts have bee n sustained in the Provinces . Without their present subsidies from the Art s Council there would be no Royal Ballet, no Covent Garden Opera, n o Sadler's Wells or Old Vic, and it is more than doubtful whether suc h fruitful experiments as those of the English Stage Company at the Roya l Court Theatre or the Mermaid Theatre at Puddle Dock would have been possible without the support and association of the Arts Council. For * £1,218,000. t £1,500,000. many years now London has enjoyed an international art exhibition o f outstanding quality, organised entirely by the Arts Council . The latest of these is the great Picasso exhibition which packed the Tate Gallery thi s summer. Outside London none of the five permanent symphony orchestras would have survived without Arts Council grants, nor would the thirt y repertory theatres in England and Scotland which are nowadays the thi n red line of defence against the total mechanisation of drama . Since the war many annual Festivals of the arts have been initiated or revived, and again, without the co-operation of the Arts Council it is unlikely tha t Edinburgh, York, Leeds, Norwich, Aldeburgh, Bath, Cheltenham, King' s Lynn and Swansea would continue to mount these exemplary and festiv e demonstrations of the fine arts. THE NECESSITY FOR PUBLIC PATRONAG E The arts in this country maintain in general a high level of performance , and they are attracting audiences very much larger than those of pre-war years ; yet their economic condition is such that without a national levy o f 7d. a head they would have to put up the shutters tomorrow . The audiences contribute around two million pounds a year to the music , drama, opera, ballet and art exhibitions provided by the bodies the Arts Council supports, yet a contribution of another million and a half fro m public funds is essential to keep those arts alive . This situation is no novelty in principle. Such costly arts as grand opera and ballet and orchestral music have never paid their way in any countr y and have relied, in the past, upon the patronage of royal courts or wealthy benefactors. That kind of individual patronage is nowadays virtuall y extinct outside the U .S .A. (where it is tax-deductible), and the obligation s formerly borne by the people who practised it have become, to an increas - ing extent, the collective responsibility of taxpayers and ratepayers . Collective patronage of this kind is by no means a recent phenomenon of our society . It is more than a century since Public Libraries were accepte d as a charge upon the rates ; art galleries and museums have for decades been provided and subsidised by municipal funds. The evolution of ou r public education system, moreover, is a progressive acceptance of the principle that knowledge should be universally provided at the public expense. There was nothing revolutionary, then, in the Government' s decision, in 1946, to assume a measure of collective responsibility for th e fine arts by creating the Arts Council, or in its further decision, in 1948 , to empower Local Authorities to apply funds to the provision of music and drama. These enactments were, indeed, milestones, but they were se t up on an already well-defined highway of cultural progress . THE PRIMARY OBLIGATION S The principal instrument of public patronage in Britain is the Art s Council. Its policy has inevitably been governed to a large extent by it s financial resources, a factor which is frequently overlooked by bodie s which fail to secure a grant. With only 7d . a head to spend it is bound to be rigorously selective in its benefactions, and its constant endeavour is , first of all, to identify and sustain its primary obligations, and, that bein g done, to offer what can often be no more than a token acknowledgment o f its secondary obligations . Its basic problem is, in fact, to determine th e priorities among the hundreds of claimants which seek its assistance. It regards its major responsibility as being to maintain in the metropolis a few national institutions : Covent Garden Opera, the Royal Ballet, Sadler' s Wells Opera and the Old Vic .