The state of regional museums in Britain has often figured on this Editorial page. It might be thought that there is at present little more to be said on the subject beyond repeating how dire the situation is in many of these institutions. We have commented on their fluctuating reputations; have kept a watchful eye on their symptoms; recorded the various injections of help through government funding; praised where we can, blamed where we ought; but inevitably we have had little to offer in the way of advice or cure. Next year, the effects of cuts in funding and staff, at all levels, will become even more apparent than before. Already, however, many smaller specialist museums, admittedly of fairly local interest, have closed throughout Britain. It is easy to say that such places are of restricted interest but it should be stressed that they often demonstrate to their visitors, some for the first time perhaps, how we collect, organise and publicly present the past (or what is now usually termed ‘heritage’). As such they can be vital to embryonic curators, historians and administrators. To monitor these closures, the Museums Journal has set up a website that lists museums now gone or in danger as well as commenting on cuts.1 The site will be regularly updated and will prove a useful, if disheartening, guide.

The latest move to help beleaguered museums and galleries has come from a development in the Renaissance in the Regions funding initiative, established in 2001. The responsibility for this now lies with Arts Council England which took over the administration of the programme from the Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) in October last year. Its major grants scheme is worth £20 million p.a. and this has already been distributed to sixteen individual or group applicants. In addition it runs a ‘strategic support fund’ for museums that have fallen outside these sixteen, the largest grants so far having been awarded to the museums of Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield.

Nottingham – the Castle Museum in the city, along with Lord Byron’s Newstead Abbey and Wollaton Hall (the Natural History Museum) – has been given £1.38 million over three years and provides a good example of what might be done in the way of future revitalisation. The Castle Museum is desperately in need of care and attention; it is not particularly easy of access, perched way above the city, and it charges £5.50 for admission. Nor is it, as far as fine art is concerned, one of the more distinguished regional collections. But it has enough of interest, particularly among late nineteenth- and twentieth-century British artists, to guarantee a more inspirational visit than it currently offers. Oil paintings are corralled into a large central gallery and hung randomly like an auctioneer’s general picture sale with works several deep on the walls, scant attention being paid to chronology, scale, theme or stylistic affinities. On the walls (what little there is left to see) are large printed numbers by each work which refer the visitor to a basic catalogue listing available in the room. It is a dispiriting (and sometimes solitary) experience; whether you find the paintings by Delacroix and Bonington, Watts and Sickert, William Nicholson and William Roberts is largely a matter of luck. Possible excuses for this state of affairs – lack of staff, space and resources – do not hold up. One alert curator and two handlers could change the display into something intelligible and informative in a couple of days. We can only hope that the Renaissance grant to Nottingham will galvanise those in charge towards a transformation of this particular area of their responsibilities.

The focus of a one-day debate held on 1st November at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, was on the relation between museum exhibitions and university research, particularly, of course, from within art history departments. We have commented before on the apparent decline of regional curatorial expertise as it affects exhibitions, displays and collection acquisitions. This has been especially notable in the decorative and applied arts and in painting and sculpture pre-c.1900. Some help is to hand through the increasing collaboration between universities and museums, often with fine results. The 2011 exhibition William Etty: Art & Controversy was put forward at the Barber debate as a fruitful example of a partnership between York University and York Art Gallery. But there are drawbacks to such liaisons: if universities (through the Higher Education Funding Council for England) fund museum research, the heat is off for grants to the museums themselves. And once an exhibition or research project at a museum is concluded by the ‘parachuted in’ postgraduates and academics, there is no continuity in knowledge.

Acquisitions are the life-blood of museums and galleries, whether through purchase, gift or bequest. But studying recent acquisition lists is a doleful experience; gifts and bequests are few and far between (in contrast to museums in, say, America or Germany); acquisitions spearheaded by the institutions themselves are often of a timid or only local appeal (important though this can be) and the accession of objects of wider significance has certainly diminished. Acquisition budgets are minimal or non-existent but there are now several very active grant-giving bodies. The Director of the Art Fund, Stephen Deuchar, commented at the Barber that 70 per cent of Art Fund disbursements go to the regions but commented on the sliding standard of written applications and the often unambitious level of the objects under consideration. But it is worth stressing that there are many curators in place who would be more motivated, their sights set higher, if administration was less onerous, resources greater and their pay more inducive.

In spite of all these drawbacks, and not wishing to end on too bleak a note, a look at this month’s Calendar of exhibitions in regional museums on p.875 below is heartening. At the Barber Institute itself there is the exemplary show devoted to Thomas Fearnley; in Wakefield the beautiful operating theatre drawings by Barbara Hepworth; Baroque cabinets in Bath; Rembrandt under the spotlight in Glasgow; Laura Knight in the open air in Worcester; the designs of William and Evelyn de Morgan at Compton; there are shows of Miró, Dubuffet, Kounellis and Alex Katz; of Haitian art; an exploration of the career of Sir Charles Eastlake; and solo shows devoted to established contemporary artists such as Gary Hume, Jane and Louise Wilson, Glenn Brown and Fiona Rae. Please visit! Good visitor figures not only satisfy the Gradgrinds of local authorities but, crucially, can raise curatorial morale.

1    www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/13102010-cuts-monitor; www.museums­association.org/closures.