102 THE NATIONAL GALLERY
out when anyone thinks that the National Gallery is not for them. We look forward to our next steps, and opening up the new Sainsbury Wing entrance, our Supporters’ House, and our research centre, at the end of our bicentenary year. We hope many visitors may step inside for the first time, and those who have come before can experience a different start to their visit and view of our collection.’
By the end of 2023 two major rooms had been magnificently redecorated, re-hung and reopened. Te curatorial staff certainly know what they are doing even if, time and again, their architectural advisors have long been found wanting. Whilst no overall plan for the redecoration of the original building has been announced, or exactly how or in what order the paintings will in future be displayed, it is intended to re-hang the entire building over the next three years. Te two rooms already in place are called ‘Painting in Renaissance Venice’ and ‘Italian 17th century painting’.
said of her own approach, ‘My instinct is not so much to add anything but to sort of peel away layers that allow a simpler kind of coming together.’ Te firm is certainly skilled in navigating different eras, contexts and styles. Selldorf was trying her best with what she had been tasked. We shall see how it all turns out in May next year.
A great leap forward: re-hanging the collection
For some time, the National Gallery has been half what it really is – literally. Much of the museum has been off-limits at the same time as the work to the Sainsbury Wing was underway. Big names were missing, as things were being rearranged, and in some cases it was not only really crowded, it was dark, at times mysteriously so, as the gallery saved on the lighting. Nevertheless, it will all come good in the end. Te director of the National Gallery, Gabriele Finaldi, says, ‘We all miss
When the Sainsbury Wing entrance reopens, all of its gallery spaces will also be open. At the time of its first opening, the gallery’s director at the time, Nicholas Penny, said: ‘One of the problems that one has hanging the earliest paintings in the National Gallery is that they are some of the largest pictures – the great altarpieces – and some of the smallest,’ a problem he for one was very pleased with Venturi’s solution. From the outset, the Sainsbury Wing had been planned as a space where the gallery could breathe new life into the display of its outstanding collection of early renaissance paintings. Te public could view the earliest paintings in the collection in a broadly chronological sequence in which pictures from southern and northern Europe were no longer separated but were placed in adjoining rooms. Tese paintings, mostly religious and devotional pictures or early portraiture, could be enjoyed in a series of
galleries whose interiors are reminiscent of the Italian churches in which many of them would originally have been housed.
Reopening Room 29: Te Wolfson Gallery – Painting in Renaissance Venice Built as part of a new extension in the 1920s to house the gallery’s growing collection, this project was funded by Joseph Duveen in 1928, who offered to pay for the cost of building a ‘Venetian Room’. First opened to the public in 1930, Room 29 is one of the largest spaces in the gallery. Since its doors closed in March 2022, important changes
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