REVIEW OF THE YEAR THE NATIONAL GALLERY REVIEW OF THE YEAR April 2015 – March 2016 Published by Order of the Trustees of the National Gallery London 2016 PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES The National Gallery was established by Parliament in 1824 for the benefi t of the public. It houses a uniquely important collection of some 2,400 pictures which tell a coherent story of European art spanning seven centuries, from Cimabue to Degas. The Board of Trustees of the National Gallery holds the pictures in trust on behalf of the nation. The Gallery’s objectives are to preserve the collection by maintaining the highest standards of care and conservation, to enhance the collection by acquiring great pictures and to display it in a sensitive manner for the enjoyment and understanding of the public. The Gallery undertakes high-level research that it publishes through a variety of media and as a national and international leader in its fi eld it works in partnership with museums and academic institutions in the UK and overseas. The Gallery aims to engage the widest possible audience in the experience of its collection by opening free of charge every day to everyone, by lending some of its works to temporary exhibitions, through special public programmes and by digital means. It aims to be a resource on art for the whole world to inspire present and future generations. TRUSTEES’ INTRODUCTION When the National Gallery was founded nearly two protected (including payment of the London Living hundred years ago in 1824, its mission was simple: to Wage). We are grateful to all staff, to Securitas and acquire, on behalf of the nation, great paintings for the others who worked hard to achieve the smooth and people of the United Kingdom. Thanks to some remark- effective transfer. ably generous donors and to a succession of superb pur- In the autumn we were also preparing for a chases, it now has one of the most perfectly formed Government spending review. Having shouldered signif- collections of great paintings anywhere in the world. Over icant cuts year on year to our budget in the past, there the last two centuries the Gallery’s mission has expanded were real fears that any further reductions would curtail and become far more complex. Today it is a teaching and even further the range of the Gallery’s activities and its research institution, visited by thousands of schoolchil- plans for the years ahead. The Board therefore greatly dren every year, and there are hundreds of classes for the welcomed the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and curious and interested. The Curatorial, Conservation and Sport’s announcement in November that the Gallery’s Scientifi c Departments advise international and regional Grant in Aid would be maintained at the same level, in museums. The building, designed for a few thousand, cash terms, for the next four years. This enables us to plan now welcomes about six million visitors annually. The for the future with some confi dence and also to build up Gallery has to change and evolve to meet the demands of our own income-generating capabilities. the modern age. In February 2016 the Board was delighted to The process of fi nding a new Director is a daunting announce that HRH The Prince of Wales had become and important task. Following the announcement of the Gallery’s fi rst Royal Patron. His Royal Highness was Sir Nicholas Penny’s retirement, Trustees conducted an a Trustee of the Gallery from 1986 to 1993; he is a com- exhaustive international search. Just under a year later, mitted patron of the arts and a passionate advocate for the we were delighted to welcome Dr Gabriele Finaldi as cultural life of the nation. The Board looks forward to Director. Dr Finaldi came most recently from the Prado working closely with him over the coming years. Museum in Madrid, where he had been Deputy Director The Board would like to thank the Gallery’s staff, for Collections and Research since 2002 but many will members, patrons and donors for their support this year. recall his time at the National Gallery where he served We look forward to the Gallery’s future, under the lead- as Curator of Later Italian and Spanish Paintings from ership of Gabriele Finaldi, with optimism and excitement. 1992 to 2002. In August 2015, the Board said goodbye to Mark HANNAH ROTHSCHILD (CHAIR) Getty KBE, who stepped down as Chair of the Trustees LANCE BATCHELOR after serving a remarkable sixteen years on the Board, GAUTAM DALAL including seven as Chair. The Board would like to DEXTER DALWOOD record here its sincere gratitude to him, not only for KATRIN HENKEL HRH The Prince of Wales, the Gallery’s Royal Patron, at the opening of Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art his leadership and strategic guidance during those years, MICHAEL HINTZE ANYA HURLBERT but also for his remarkably generous personal support M E RV Y N KING of the Gallery and its acquisitions. He is succeeded by ROSEMARY LEITH Hannah Rothschild. LISA MILROY In considering how to create a more fl exible JOHN NELSON environment that could respond more effectively to CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE changes in public expectations and visitor patterns, the JOHN SINGER Trustees took the diffi cult decision to transfer our secu- CAROLINE THOMSON rity and front of house services to a partner organisation. Understandably this caused uncertainty and it regret- tably led to a period of industrial dispute. Happily, this came to an end in time for the handover to Securitas in November. This was achieved without any redun- dancies and with the terms and conditions of the staff 6 THE NATIONAL GALLERY REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2015–2016 THE NATIONAL GALLERY REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2015–2016 7 DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD I took up my post as Director in August and am delighted collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of Art, it was to be back at the National Gallery after thirteen years. It directed in London by Christopher Riopelle, the Gallery’s is a great honour to lead an institution that is held in the most experienced and productive exhibition curator. highest esteem throughout the world and is much loved A smaller show in the Sunley Room that combined tra- by the public, and I look forward to the challenges and ditional art-historical research with the latest digital tech- opportunities that lie ahead. nology was Visions of Paradise: Botticini’s Palmieri Altarpiece, Central to the role of the Gallery is the enhancement which focused on the authorship, iconography and on of its collections with new acquisitions. Thanks to the gen- the historical and theological context of this large panel erosity of the American philanthropist and art collector, of the 1470s. A virtual reconstruction of the demolished Ronald S. Lauder, the Gallery has been able to acquire Florentine church of San Pier Maggiore for which it was Giovanni da Rimini’s Scenes from the Lives of the Virgin and painted was the result of the Gallery’s collaboration with other Saints. This exquisite and rare panel is the fi rst work Cambridge University. by him owned by the Gallery and it is in superb phys- This year has been a time for farewells at the National ical condition. It shows how the artistic innovations of Gallery. In August Sir Nicholas Penny who had been Giotto were grafted onto the Byzantine pictorial tradition Director since 2008 retired after a period which saw some and refl ects the experimental character of early Trecento remarkable temporary exhibitions and several important Riminese painting. Similarly unrepresented in Trafalgar picture acquisitions, notably the two late mythologies Square until now is the Danish painter, Laurits Anderson made by Titian for Philip II of Spain (purchased jointly Ring (1854–1933). A Road in the Village of Baldersbrønde with the Scottish National Gallery) and George Bellows’s (Winter Day), which dates from 1912, was purchased by Men of the Docks which, as a picture by an American painter the Gallery thanks to a generous legacy from David Leslie working in a European idiom, marked a new and prom- Medd OBE as well as support from a number of donors. ising direction for the collection. Nick’s commitment to Its combination of Nordic naturalism and geometrical scholarship at the Gallery will be further demonstrated in elegance makes it an austere and haunting image. We May 2016 when his third catalogue devoted to the Italian are grateful to the Acceptance-in-lieu panel and the Arts sixteenth-century paintings will be published. Dr Ashok Council for enabling Luca Signorelli’s Man on a Ladder, a Roy, who joined the Gallery in 1977 and led its scientifi c fragment of his Matelica altarpiece of the Lamentation at research for nearly four decades, retired in February. As the Foot of the Cross, to join what is the fi nest collection of editor of the Technical Bulletin since its inception he made this Renaissance artist’s works outside Italy. the Gallery a beacon of what we now confi dently refer to Among the exhibitions held over the course of the as ‘Technical Art History’, a fi eld in which he has been year, two in particular stand out. Goya: The Portraits, spon- a world-renowned pioneer. Also in 2016, Roger Pearce sored by the National Gallery’s Partner Credit Suisse, was who served as a warder and supervisor for 39 years took the fi rst exhibition ever held on this subject, exploring a his retirement. He was responsible in 1987 for appre- highly signifi cant aspect of Goya’s production that was hending the man who shot the Leonardo cartoon.