Bendor Grosvenor

Bendor Grosvenor is an art historian and broadcaster

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Museums have hastily cut their staff to save money—what will happen when visitors return and they need them back?

With vaccines now being deployed and a return to normality on the horizon, institutions may find they have been shortsighted in letting their employees go

Auction houses have finally entered the Amazon age—and I’m addicted

I thought I’d kicked my online art and antiques buying habit but too much lockdown screen time has been my undoing

People see only 'silver tits' and 'bouffant pubes' now—but I predict Mary Wollstonecraft sculpture will become widely admired

One of the iron rules of art history is that the more derided a work of art at first, the more celebrated it will become

Is the UK seeing the emergence of a ‘Godfather approach’ to arts funding?

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has been ignoring the arm's length principle and offering museums unsolicited advice

I finally went to see some art—and caught Covid-19

A trip to the National Gallery was eerie and alien—although a newly restored Van Dyck painting briefly shook off my anxiety

Fundingcomment

'Be commercially minded or lose future funding': UK government's threat puts museums in peril

In a letter leaked to The Art Newspaper, the culture minister Oliver Dowden tells directors they must raise their own funds during the pandemic—but how?

National Trust restructuring plans are ‘one of the most damaging assaults on art historical expertise ever seen in the UK’

Job cuts and planned repurposing of country houses will lead to a corporatisation of the nation's heritage sites

'When the politics change, so must the statues'

History can teach us a lot about how to—and how not to—deal with problematic historic monuments

Museums are about to reopen—but should they?

Social distancing measures mean a lot of money will be spent on a small number of visitors, institutions should be focusing on their online presence instead

Must London always win? National Gallery of Scotland cancels Titian show for all the wrong reasons

By bowing out of the Renaissance blockbuster tour, the Edinburgh museum has not only let down the Scottish public but shown its priorities are misplaced

'Being an art historian now is easier and more productive than it’s ever been'

Publishers and libraries are extending their online access to help art historians put their period of enforced seclusion to good use

Mona Lisa, Rembrandt and Venus enjoy a well-earned rest during lockdown

After the coronavirus pandemic, we will need our museums' masterpieces as never before

Podcastspodcast

Coronavirus: dispatches from Italy and China

We speak to our journalists Anna Somers Cocks and Lisa Movius about their experiences of lockdown. Plus, we begin a new feature—Lonely Works—where we look at individual works of art that are now hanging unseen in galleries. Produced in association with Bonhams, auctioneers since 1793

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speakers Anna Somers Cocks, Lisa Movius and Bendor Grosvenor. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Aimee Dawson

Is art history becoming too woke?

Discussion around Yale's decision to pull its introductory survey course reveals unnerving trend for "morally appropriate" studies

What can mysterious markings in stone teach us about British art?

Research for a new book begins with a pilgrimage to find prehistoric rock art in northern England

Disneyfication at the National Gallery? Plus, the problem with deaccessioning in the UK

The stigma around state museums selling works means that other institutions dare not buy them; and a frank review of the National Gallery's Leonardo exhibition

Why was the National Portrait Gallery so secretive about its closure?

The London museum will close between 2020 and 2023, but the announcement was buried in the fourth paragraph of a press release

UK national museums could learn a lot from their regional cousins

When it comes to having a historian rummaging in their stores, smaller institutions tend to be more enthusiastic and accommodating

When Britain divides, custody of its art must be shared fairly

If Scottish independence follows Brexit, what will happen to the national collection?

National Gallery should be ashamed of how it treated its educators

Court documents reveal that the museum took little action to rectify the education team's employment status

Did the buyer of the Salvator Mundi get played—or did we?

What better way to boost its star power than by making it "disappear" for a few months?

Our 17th-century female artists faced a double injustice

New exhibition on Joan Carlile, Mary Beale and Anne Killigrew opens in London this week

Perhaps even a Leonardo copy shows you’re rich and cultured

A version of the Mona Lisa by a follower of Leonardo da Vinci recently sold at Sotheby's for $1.69m

Scotland has just four per cent of the Royal Collection—it's time it got a fairer share

The Queen has seven Rembrandts, 29 Van Dycks and 52 Canalettos, yet not one is on long-term display in Scotland

The public deserves to see restorations laid bare

London's National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam are both documenting repairs of major works—plus a personal conservation confession

Tate, WTF is up with you using Wikipedia?

Once an expert authority on Van Dyck, the museum now has nothing more to say about him than a link to an unverified website