Wanted:

Reproduced on these pages is the recent correspondence between the chairman of the National Gallery’s Board of Trustees, Peter Scott QC, and Austin Mitchell, MP. In his letter, Mitchell accuses the chairman of the Board of ‘…presiding over a betrayal of the country’s culture in art, led by its flagship gallery’.

For the past four years, Mitchell has put down Early Day Motions calling for proper recognition of J.M.W. Turner’s First Art Bequest to the nation and to review of the appointment of an unelected, unrepresentative and unapproachable Board of Trustees which remains infected with the poison Anthony Blunt (1907-83) injected into British art history. The Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and for 27 years (1947-74) the all-powerful director of London University’s Courtauld Institute of Art, took a terrible revenge on the country following the 1951 discovery of his espionage activities. Blunt, who expressed no interest in British art, then made certain that Britain’s important contribution to civilization, as evoked by Turner, remains belittled.

The opening sentence of Scott’s letter reads: “The Over-Turners have previously drawn our attention to their questions concerning the history of the relationship between the paintings by Claude and Turner.” - They have indeed for the past 20 years. Operating alongside the Turner Society, the Over-Turners principal spokesman was Sir Hugh Casson (1910-99). The architect of the 1952 Festival of Britain, considered the best President of the Royal Academy during the last century, Casson tried unsuccessfully to get Prince Charles, then a trustee of the National Gallery, and Lord Sainsbury, a friend and former trustee, to intervene in the issue on behalf of the British people. In his frustration at the intransigence of the institution, he appealed to the then Secretary of State for National Heritage, Peter Brooke, MP, to appoint an Ombudsman to whom the British people, the owners of the art in the National Gallery, could turn. The request was denied.

In his letter of 23rd January, Mitchell reminds Scott that it took 131 years to overcome what was a blatant violation by the National of the terms of Turner’s will governing the acceptance of his Second Art Bequest to the nation of the 30,000 works now in the Clore Gallery. The National’s refusal to display the bequest in a separate gallery was in clear breach of the terms of Turner’s will. It was only overcome when the editor of the Evening News, Louis Kirby, took on the Turner Society’s campaign. The enclosed illustrations show that it took 2.1/2 years to overcome the National’s resistance to a separate gallery.

To crush the National’s resistance to a proper display of Turner’s First Art Bequest we need an editor and a newspaper with a social conscience and determination. Who will take up the challenge?

For further information call Austin Mitchell: 020 7219 4559