Visual arts

Applications are now open for the latest round of DCMS/Wolfson Fund for galleries and museums in England.

With £4m available in total, museums, galleries and museum services can submit bids of up to £300,000 for projects improving display and interpretation, visitor experience, access and environmental controls and conservation.

Institutions must be, or have previously been, members of an Arts Council England development scheme or sponsored by DCMS to be eligible.

DCMS and the Wolfson Fund have worked together for 20 years, delivering £48m across 400 projects at museums and galleries since the fund’s inception.

Full application details are available via the DCMS website. Applications will close 1 August, with the fund set to be shared out across two years.

Jerwood Arts will close its long-running exhibitions and events programme at the end of the year so it can redirect funding.

For the last 18 years, the organisation has funded three annual exhibitions of work by early-career artists at the Jerwood Space in London that then tour the UK. 

To date, the programme has shown works by more than 1,700 artists, curators and writers, commissioned more than 250 new works, and exhibited work in 75 galleries.

Artists supported by the programme have been included in major exhibition and art fairs and include the Array Collective, winners of last year’s Turner Prize.

The closure is part of a “refocused strategy” that Jerwood Arts says will support a greater number of artists and curators. 

£1m will be disbursed over three years from 2023 to support early-career artists, curators, galleries and visual arts organisations. It will include 18-month-long residencies for six early-career visual artists.

“The importance of independent funding to support artistic development and freedom of expression feels as urgent as ever,” said Director Lilli Geissendorfer, promising the refocused funding would increase opportunities for artists and curators “at a pivotal moment in their careers”.

A series of events celebrating the 18-year history of the exhibitions and events programme will be held at Jerwood Space towards the end of the year.

A friend of Francis Bacon is cancelling plans to donate an extensive collection of the late artist's work to the Tate.

Barry Joule said the decision follows the institution’s failure to exhibit works donated in 2004, when he gave the Tate around 1,200 sketches, photographs and documents estimated to be worth £20m.

Joule has now started negotiations with the archives of the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

The collection includes up to 150 drawings, 10 paintings, hundreds of photogaphs and more than 12 hours of taped material.

“The Tate and Britain will be missing out on part of the nation’s art history of one of their most important painters. I turn my back on the Tate for ever,” Joule said.

Prince Charles and Queen Letizia of Spain officially opened a new gallery of Spanish art in Bishop Auckland last week.

The first UK museum dedicated exclusively to Spanish art is part of the Auckland Project, which seeks to regenerate the township around Auckland Castle. It first opened to the public in October.

It features works by Francisco de Zurbarán, which were housed in the castle for more than 250 years before going up for sale in 2011.

They were purchased by philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer, who is the gallery's benefactor.

The Government's pandemic insurance scheme for film and television is closing.

First unveiled in July 2020, The £500m Film and TV Production Restart Scheme was extended for six months in October.

DCMS says the scheme supported 95,000 jobs and led to a record £5.6bn production spend.

Its closure follows lobbying from film and TV groups who called for another extension.

Instead, insurance trade bodies will work with commercial firms to provide cover for the screen industries, the DCMS says.

Producers body Pact called the move “disappointing”.

“Pact members and the wider industry now face a very messy period where some productions will be able to get cover and others will not due to the limited number of insurance providers in the market.”

The UK’s share of the global art market fell to a historic low in 2021, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report.

The UK’s $11.3bn share equated to 17% of the global market, 3% less than the year before.

The US recorded the largest market ($28bn), while the Chinese market replaced the UK as second largest in the world ($13.4bn).

The report attributes the decline in part to Brexit and the continued imposition of VAT on art imports. 

“Some domestic EU art trade has been transferred outside of the UK, boosting markets such as France and Germany,” it reads.

Chairman of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF) Anthony Browne says the report “did not make for easy reading from the UK's perspective”.

“[The UK’s] failure to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Brexit and remove the barrier of import VAT [has] put us at a disadvantage on every level”.

Artists' representatives seeking transparency over unpaid resale royalties have commenced historic legal proceedings against multi-millionaire art dealer Ivor Braka.

The Artists’ Collecting Society (ACS) and the Design and Artists' Copyright Society (DACS) say they began making requests to Braka for information in 2006, with Braka reportedly refusing to respond.

The case is the first of their kind brought under the Artist’s Resale Right Regulations in the UK.

The regulations entitle artists to a royalty payment of up to €12,500 on the secondary sale of their works by dealers and associated art market professionals.

“The Artist’s Resale Right, now more than ever, provides invaluable financial support to artists and their estates, so it is imperative that we shine a light on those who are cutting off this essential source of income,” ACS Managing Director Harriet Bridgeman said.