THE GRANT OF £1 million by the Art Fund – the premier charity in Britain for the public acquisition of works of art – towards the appeal to buy Titian’s Diana and Actaeon and the grant of another £1 million towards the purchase of Anthony d’Offay’s collection of late twentieth-century art, jointly acquired by Tate and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,1 have drawn renewed attention in spectacular ways to this most venerable and generous institution. The first is an example of the Fund’s purpose at its most traditional – the securing of works of art for the nation against possible sale abroad (hence the title of the National Art-Collections Fund by which it was known for most of its existence). The second – helping to acquire and promote recent art – will surprise only those who have not followed the Fund’s policies in the last decade and more. A further point de départ for an assessment of the Fund’s current standing is the announcement last month of the resignation of David Barrie after seventeen years as the Fund’s director. Apart from these specific events, however, there is a growing perception of the Fund as a split personality – the familiar Lady Bountiful, unassuming yet firm, generous but not profligate, and an aggressively dictatorial organisation obsessed with stamping its image on the recipients of its charity.

The Lady Bountiful of the earlier decades, obviously tired of her discretion and mildly peeved by her role as the ‘Angel in the House’, decided a few years ago to rebrand herself. She took advice from the market place. She changed her name, dressed in younger fashions, embraced publicity and sported a pink and black heart-shaped badge at her lowered neckline that appears to announce a mail-order firm for adult lingerie. And though she discharged her duties to the old regime with matronly aplomb, she plunged with abandon into the less familiar waters of contemporary art and patronage.

The Art Fund has never been averse to helping museums acquire modern art. In early 1989 Sotheby’s held the exhibition Monet to Freud which showed off the Fund’s remarkable record not only as a dispenser of money but also as the agent through which bequests of work could be made to public collections. The exhibition also marked the launch of a special fund earmarked for contributions towards twentieth-century acquisitions. But the more recent and questionable stress on the contemporary has resulted in an accelerating number of projects such as the commission for a work by James Turrell for the  Yorkshire Sculpture Park (the Fund’s first direct commission) and the collaborative Big Art Project for sculpture in locations nominated by the public, the works celebrating socio-economic themes such as eco-tourism and ‘divided communities’. This may produce some exceptional works from the international artists currently engaged but it seems a long way from the Fund’s purpose and expertise. £500,000 has been put aside for this project – only twice that amount was given to the Titian appeal. While everyone was grateful for that exceptional gift, the largest in the Fund’s history, there were those who felt that a greater sum might have been contributed to the required £50 million. It has been said that more might indeed have been allocated if the National Gallery had felt able to acceed to the Fund’s conditions contingent on a larger grant.

A somewhat similar but more distressing situation has arisen over an application from one of the great regional museums for funding towards the purchase of an old-master painting for its permanent collection. The money asked for was granted but, again, with several strings attached on the manner in which the Fund’s help was to be acknowledged. With most of these the museum in question – long the recipient of Fund assistance – was only too happy to comply but it put its foot down at displaying the Fund’s logo on the wall label next to the picture.2 The grant was withdrawn and money promised from other public funds was consequently revoked with the result that the picture was not acquired. A problem so seemingly trivial and, surely, so easy to resolve, nevertheless demonstrates the Fund’s aggressive  tactics. Many would agree with the Museum that the logo is visually unseemly and, if put in place, it sets a precedent for similar demands from other funding institutions who quite often give larger grants than the Art Fund. A hoarding of different logos might easily be the result (and probably for this reason Tate and the National Gallery have resisted displaying the logo alongside works in their galleries) and the Art Fund’s presence would be lost in a billboard of graphic tags. But this teacup storm has more serious implications; these concern the Fund’s interference with each museum’s character and methods of presentation. While all would be willing in some way to accommodate the Fund’s requirements, some may well feel unable to apply for its help if these requirements become rule. This would act against the Fund’s purpose and surely dismay its members. A conciliatory and consistent policy is needed here.

The second of the Fund’s most publicised acts of generosity last year was its role in the acquisition of the collection of the dealer Anthony d’Offay. Protracted negotiations involved the sale to the nation of over seven hundred modern and contemporary works by artists from the 1970s to the present. To assist such an acquisition was in line with the Fund’s current policy. Not content with that, it subsequently allocated a quarter of a million pounds per annum for two years, possibly three, to help circulate selected aspects of the collection, adding ‘On Tour with the Art Fund’ to the title of the travelling shows. Putting aside questions of quality and the future value of the works (they were estimated at the top of the market in 2008 at £125 million), this seems a high price to pay for what is surely a minor part of the Fund’s charitable responsibilities. Contemporary art appears here to have become some kind of publicity-driven currency rather than valued for itself. While some benefactors may be drawn to this all-out embrace of the new, it is doubtful if such a scheme will revive the Fund’s sinking membership.

No one can deny the Art Fund’s extraordinary record of  generosity and its decisive interventions in campaigns such as  the saving of the Macclesfield Psalter or Dumfries House. Nor can one overlook the devotion and expertise of its trustees and advisers through whom museums large and small benefit from  its grants. But it is surely time it reconsidered its objectives and conduct before Lady Bountiful becomes a figure to distrust or even to avoid.