Page 11Page 12
Page 11
The creation of a new £150m Museum of London at West Smithfi eld in Clerkenwell has moved forward with a competition to fi nd an architect to come up with ways to transform the old meat market. Newsnight presenter Evan Davis will chair the judges. The winning practice will also need to consider how best to display the objects in the collection. “The challenge of sympathetically reinventing a series of fascinating and wonderful buildings and reimagining them as a museum is big, a bit scary and terribly exciting,” said Sharon Ament, the museum’s Director. The winning practice will be announced in the summer with a view to completion in 2021.Below: Smithfi eld marketSmithfi eld on international huntImages of watercolours, drawings and prints from 500 collections are to be added this summer to more than 200,000 oil paintings owned by the nation and displayed online. Art UK (www.artuk.org) evolved from the Public Catalogue Foundation, launched in 2003 to bring to light the works of art kept in storage or inaccessible places. The website gives universal online access to works from over 3,200 public collections in Britain. “This is an important new stage in our founding principles of making our public collections accessible for enjoyment, learning and research,” said Andrew Ellis, CEO of Art UK.Above: Image created by Bob & Roberta Smith for the collectionSir Peter Moores, the Littlewoods heir and philanthropist who founded the Compton Verney Art Gallery, has died aged 83. The son of Sir John Moores, co-founder of the Littlewoods Pools empire that later expanded into retail, Peter Moores fi rst love was opera. He worked as an opera production assistant before joining Littlewoods. He left in 1993 to devote his time to philanthropy though his Peter Moores Foundation. But he also loved visual art, and when he was asked to help found an opera house in the grounds of Compton Verney House in Warwickshire he instead turned it into an art gallery. He bought it in 1993, poured more than £60m into the project, and it opened as Compton Verney Art Gallery in 2004. His foundation also helped found the Transatlantic Slave Trade Gallery in Liverpool in 1994 which expanded into the International Slavery Museum in 2007.Mackintosh house now has entry feeAdmission charges to the Hunterian Museum’s Mackintosh House in Glasgow have been introduced for the fi rst time to help pay for its upkeep and towards investment in its visitor facilities. The Hunterian, part of the University of Glasgow, is custodian of some of the most important examples of the work of the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret. The Mackintosh House is an assemblage of the main spaces in their Glasgow home, and was completed in 1981. Admission charges are now £5 for adults and £3 for senior citizens.Hidden art revealed onlineSir Peter Moores, Compton Verney creator, dies aged 83Proposed changes to the National Media Museum (NMM) in Bradford that would see some 400,000 items of the Royal Photographic Society moving to the V&A in London have been offset by a £7.5m investment.The NMM is a branch of the Science Museum, which said the move was part of a refocusing of the museum on the science, rather than the art of light and sound. As well as the investment promise, the Science Museum recently transferred to it 270,000 images, 26,000 books and periodicals, 10,000 items of archival materials and 6,000 pieces of camera equipment. Science Museum moves objects to NMMARTS NEWSwww.nadfas.org.uk NADFAS REVIEW / SUMMER 2016 11