The Art Fund
|David Verey CBE
The Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as well as lobbying on behalf of museums and galleries and their users. The Fund relies on members' subscriptions and public donations for funds and does not receive funding from the government or the National Lottery.
Since its foundation in 1903 the Fund has been involved in the acquisition of over 860,000 works of art of every kind, including many of the most famous objects in British public collections, such as Velázquez's Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery, Picasso's Weeping Woman in the Tate collection, the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the medieval Canterbury Astrolabe Quadrant in the British Museum.
The original idea for an arts charity can be traced to a lecture given by John Ruskin in 1857 when he called for the establishment of a "great society" to save works of art for public collections and "watch over" them.
The Art Fund, then named The National Art Collections fund, was founded in 1903 in order to help museums and galleries acquire works of art. The founders of The Art Fund, who included Christiana Herringham, D. S. MacColl and Roger Fry, were prompted by what they saw as the inadequacy of government funding of museums.
Art critic Frank Rutter said it made him "boil with rage" that the Fund had spent thousands of pounds on Old Master paintings, some of which he considered of dubious merit or condition, but "would not contribute one half penny" to his appeal in 1905 to buy the first Impressionist painting for the National Gallery, although it welcomed the prestige of presenting the painting, Eugène Boudin's The Entrance to Trouville Harbour, the following year. He said "the Fund's inertia and snobbish ineptitude are entirely characteristic of the art-officialdom in England."
In addition to using its own funds to help museums and galleries acquire art, the Art Fund organises national fundraising campaigns to secure significant works of art that are in danger of being lost from public view.
In 2009 the Art Fund led a fundraising campaign to save the Staffordshire Hoard, a collection of over 3,500 gold and silver artefacts discovered in Staffordshire. Over £900,000 was raised through public donations, and the campaign received substantial funds from trusts and foundations. As a result of the campaign, the £3.3 million treasure was acquired for Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.
In 2010 The Procession to Calvary by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, which had been hung in Wakefield's Nostell Priory for over 200 years, came under risk of being sold on the open market. The Art Fund worked with the National Trust to raise the £2.7 million required to purchase the painting for the National Trust's art collection.
- "British Museum scoops £100,000 Art Fund Prize and is crowned 'Museum of the Year'". The Art Fund. 15 June 2011.
- "Royal Albert Memorial Museum crowned 'Museum of the Year'". The Art Fund. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
- Goldsmith, Belinda (4 June 2013). "William Morris Gallery crowned British museum of year". Reuters. Retrieved 10 June 2013.