Museum beats target to display Brunels’artwork

THE Brunel Museum at Rotherhithe has broken the target of a nationwide crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the necessary equipment to display a series of watercolours painted by Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Through the Art Happens With Art Fund, the museum sought to raise £18,500 to purchase a bespoke, archive-quality case to allow it to display the paintings on site.

The Thames Tunnel watercolours are a series of images, hand-drawn and coloured by the Brunels during its construction and were bought at auction by the museum in 2017 with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund, V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and Friends of the National Libraries, but have since been kept in storage.

The appeal had raised nearly £21,000 with two days to go, as we closed for press.