In The Sunday Times...
April 17 2011

Picture: The Estate of L S Lowry
...are two intriguing bits of artworld news, which I shall liberate from behind the paywall.
Richard Brooks has both stories: the first is that the trustee of L S Lowry's estate has refused the Tate permission to copy a work by Lowry, in protest at the museum's refusal to display more of his paintings. Brooks reports that although the Tate owns 23 Lowrys it has only shown one, Industrial Landscape, and then only briefly.
Tate curator Chris Stephens is quoted as saying;
'What makes Lowry so popular is the same thing which stops him being the subject of serious critical attention. What attracts so many is a sort of sentimentality about him. He's a victim of his own fan base.'
I find this statement bewildering.
The other piece of news is gossip - that the favourite to become the new V&A Director is the German Martin Roth, 56, currently running the Kunstsammlung in Dresden.
Update - 21.4.11: Roth got the job - many congratulations to him.