Finaldi confirmed at last
March 18 2015
Gabriele Finaldi has at last been confirmed as the new National Gallery director. I'm out and about today, so can't post pictures or links (posting this from my phone) but there's an extensive press release on the NG's website.
It has been some months* since I first broke the news of his impending appointment. I am not sure why the confirmation has taken so long. I'd begun to wonder if I'd made a blunder...
Anyway, many congratulations to Dr. Finaldi; I wish him the best of luck in his new post.
Update - Jonathan Jones in The Guardian has some advice for Dr. Finaldi, while Polly Toynbee, in the same paper, re-offers tired old warnings against restructuring the staff. On the same theme, Richard Dorment in The Telegraph has a more upbeat assessment:
One task I don’t envy him is dealing with what many perceive to be a culture of negativity and complaint among curatorial staff in a gallery that is, after all, amply staffed and reasonably well funded – at least by comparison to other national museums. Last month, Gallery staff also went on strike, twice, in a row over the privitisation of visitor services, with a further strike expected next week.
However, I presume that someone who has just been through a trial by fire such as the Spanish economy will be well prepared for what look like very difficult years ahead for our National Museums.
*January, in fact. You read it here first!
