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July 4, 2007
The Sorrows of an Underfunded National Gallery
It is hard to overestimate the crisis, the hopeless nature of which may have been one of the reasons for Saumarez Smith's surprise announcement in March of his plans to resign as the museum's director. To put it in perspective, the government grant to the National Gallery [London] destined for purchases has been set at zero since 1992. The museum has to look to other sources.Yes, that would drive a director to resignation.
That's from Martin Gayford's article in Bloomberg:Muse, which has some interesting assessments of which of the treasures might be worth taking a pass on. After all, there's even better stuff not on the market yet . . .
Gayford begins by quoting this article on the situation from the Art Newspaper. Together they make interesting reading.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at July 4, 2007 7:49 AM