Lockdown is ‘body blow to museums’

MUSEUMS and galleries are ‘fighting for survival’ following the latest lockdown, a national charity has warned.

Others could follow in the footsteps of the Florence Nightingale Museum in London, which has announced it is closing for the ‘foreseeable future’.

Art Fund, the national charity for art, predicted that small institutions will suffer most. Larger institutions such as the National Gallery (right) are less vulnerable.

‘The latest lockdown is a body blow and is leaving our museums and galleries fighting for survival,’ said its director Jenny Waldman.

‘Smaller museums in particular, which are so vital to their communities, simply do not have the reserves to see them through this winter. Six in ten museums, galleries and historic houses were worried about their survival.’

The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead is one of those under threat, Art Fund said.

Florence Nightingale Museum’s director David Green said: ‘The pandemic has left us on our knees. The sad irony is that Florence Nightingale’s teachings are being used to this day to help save lives in the pandemic.’

Art Fund is urging Britons to donate to its Together For Museums crowdfunding campaign. Artists, whose works can sell for millions of pounds, can be bought from £15, with the aim to raise £1million. They include pieces by Howard Hodgkin, Jeremy Deller, Cornelia Parker, Sir Anish Kapoor and Michael Landy.

Sir Anish said: ‘Museums are where we go to witness our psychic history and understand ourselves. Today they face great difficulty.’

Art Fund has announced £750,000 of new grants to help 23 museums, taking its total to £2.25million. But it has received applications of more than £16million,