The future of the New Art Gallery Walsall, in the West Midlands, hangs in the balance as local councillors prepare to vote on deep funding cuts on 23 February. The Caruso St John-designed gallery opened in 2000 as part of a wave of millennium projects in the UK regions. It is the permanent home of the prestigious Garman Ryan collection, donated to Walsall by the widow of the sculptor Jacob Epstein in 1973. Walsall Council is considering reducing the free gallery’s subsidy (currently around £900,000 a year) to zero by 2020. The reduction would force it to become self-sustaining or potentially close. In November, 35 leading art-world figures, including the incoming Tate director Maria Balshaw and the artist Cornelia Parker, wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper protesting against the gallery’s threatened closure, which they described as “a devastating blow to the life of the community”. Walsall council leader Sean Coughlan says that the gallery’s trustees have “responded positively” to the proposal and that any decision will take into account the results of a public consultation.
