The National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square is an iconic attraction known for its exceptional artworks, such as Van Gogh’s The Sunflowers, Constable’s The Hay Wain, and Da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks.
On 10 May 2024, it turned 200 years old. This extraordinary landmark makes it one of the oldest museums and galleries in the world.
To celebrate, the Gallery has developed an ambitious year-long festival programme, dubbed NG200, which presents events across the UK and internationally. In addition, the Gallery is undergoing extensive building works, and planning a complete rehang.
Paul Gray, deputy director and chief operating officer, speaks to blooloop about the anniversary celebrations and reflects on what it takes to be resilient in the museum sector—both in the past and in the future.
Gray started working in arts and heritage in 1995 as a marketing specialist. After holding prominent positions at Kew Gardens, Turner Contemporary, and Historic Royal Palaces, he joined the National Gallery executive team in May 2018. Here, he has a broad operational role, with responsibility for the attraction’s business activities and as Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for all major capital projects and programmes.
He completed the Getty Leadership programme in 2015 and has been serving as a non-executive director/trustee at Chelsea Physic Garden for eight years and a member of St Paul’s Cathedral Council for six years. He is also the current chair of the Fulham Palace Trust.
National festival
Gray shares his excitement about the NG200 festival: “We’ve thought about it a lot. We were conscious that we wanted it to be at least a year-long, and it’s going to be more with the Jeremy Deller piece.”
The extensive programme features Deller’s ‘The Triumph of Art’. This performance reflects on the importance of festivals in our society and the role of art in public collections and cultural spaces. It is first being delivered with four partners across the UK and concludes with a performance in London in 2025.
“We wanted to start it by not being in London,” he says of the programme. “That was a very conscious decision as well. I’m excited about the National Treasures tour and the Art Road Trip because they’re not London-focused.”
National Treasures will show 12 of the Gallery’s most loved paintings at partner venues across the UK. Works include Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond and Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, with some leaving the National Gallery for the first time since they entered the collection.
18 further locations will host a community-led art studio in the Art Road Trip. This is expected to welcome 200,000 participants and is set to engage audiences with the least access to creative opportunities and the arts.
“We’re taking the word ‘National’ in our title much more seriously. Not everyone can get to London, and we look after these paintings on behalf of you, they’re your paintings.
“We want to share them with everyone in the UK.”
A new welcome at the National Gallery
A further feature of the Gallery’s anniversary celebrations is a major scheme of building works which seek to update and develop key spaces. Gray, who is the SRO for these projects, says:
“We’ve got a suite of four capital projects over the next few years. They’re split into two phases, and phase one will land next spring. There’ll be a new welcome for our visitors in a reimagined Sainsbury Wing, complete with a new public realm space outside, which will be great.
“The Sainsbury Wing was brilliant when it was when it was built and opened in 1991. But it really wasn’t built for 6 million visitors, and the needs of visitors have changed so much in the last 30 years. Visitors now demand and expect, quite rightly, bigger spaces, and better spaces to orientate themselves.”
While undertaking the works on the Sainsbury Wing, Saxon materials were uncovered which revealed that their urban centre extended further west than previously understood.
The findings have altered archaeologists understanding of Saxon England. “It’s redrawing the boundaries of London,” says Gray.
But how did this find impact the building works?
“We had to prop up the entire Wilkins Building, which is rather nerve-wracking!” he shares. “I’ve got so much respect for civil engineers. What they can do is remarkable, literally holding up the whole building.”
Enhanced public spaces
In addition to the new welcome space, phase one will also create new engagement areas.
“We’ll also be creating a new creative learning centre and a new ‘supporters house’ for patrons and members of the National Gallery,” Gray says. “We were a bit of an outlier there; if you think about Tate, Southbank Centre, and the V&A, they’ve all got their member spaces and we haven’t had one. Hopefully, that will grow membership as well, which is an important part of our income.”
After phase one is completed, the plan is to take a break before embarking on the next round of works.
“We’re giving ourselves a pause from May 2025 to May 2026. Just to enjoy the gallery and rehang, we’re not going to have any capital projects going on. It’s a time for us, and also the public, just to enjoy a gallery with no interruptions,” shares Gray.
“Phase two will start in May 2026 and we’ll deliver that in the autumn or winter of 2027. That phase is about our research capabilities. There’ll be a new research centre, new seminar space, and a new artist studio.”
Creative conversations at the National Gallery
From May 2025 to May 2026, the Gallery will be taking a pause from building works and will be undertaking a major redisplay.
“The rehang will look at the collection in slightly new ways. So there’ll be more of an emphasis on theming, on thematic display. And pairing paintings in slightly surprising ways that haven’t necessarily been seen before.
“We’ll be trying to spark a conversation about painting from say, the 14th century with a painting from the 20th century, and that might be similar in terms of subject matter or style. But they’ll still broadly be within a chronological framework. We’re still working to tell the story of Western art from the 13th century.”
“By international museums standards, it’s a relatively small collection, but it’s just perfectly formed. We’ve really got all of the superstars, with Leonardo da Vinci all the way through to Van Gogh and everything in between. There are some real standout paintings like The Sunflowers and Da Vinci’s version of The Virgin of the Rocks. And then you’ve got Constable’s The Hay Wain, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Botticelli and Raphael and Titian – they’re all there. And they’re all free to see.”
Key characteristics for navigating the centuries
The National Gallery aims to bring together paintings and people, and this is evident throughout all of its projects.
“The gallery has generally had a very clearvision about connecting art with people. It sounds really simple; I guess it really is,” says Gray.
And this clarity is a mark of strong leadership, one of the traits that Gray feels an organisation needs for such longevity. He comments that the sector needs “leaders that are able to take tough decisions in difficult times. That doesn’t always happen, but that’s a strong characteristic.”
In addition, Gray argues that financial stability—being careful with money and investing for growth where possible—and a strong organisational culture are key to a long-lasting institution.
“The American consultant Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”,” Gray says. “And what he was really saying was, if you don’t have a strong organisational culture, it doesn’t really matter what you try and do, you probably won’t achieve it. So that’s making sure that you’ve got a shared vision and mission. That you’re engaging with your people, your staff, and that you’re generally pulling in the right direction.
Longevity & legacy
Adaptability, Gray says, is a key factor in the longevity of an organisation like the National Gallery. He reflects on how this characteristic has impacted the Gallery’s history:
“200 years is a long period of time. So, museums have had to change and adapt to the ever-changing world around them. Think about what the world would have looked like in 1824 and what’s come about since. And that includes two World Wars.
“In the Second World War, all our paintings were decanted to a mine in north Wales.
“I can only imagine that sense of everyone pulling together and protecting the art, but also thinking about the people – the public. The director of the time, Kenneth Clark, was very keen that even though all the paintings went away, eventually, every month, a painting came back so that people could enjoy the art. There were also public concerts with Myra Hess at the piano.
“It was about reminding ourselves why we’re here. We’re here for the public; we’re here for the people. We’re here to protect the paintings for people but also show them to the people.
“And now, with NG200, we’re really reminding ourselves why we’re here. We’re seeing NG200 as a catalyst. I wouldn’t say a catalyst for change because I think, with organisations like ours, we change constantly. But maybe it’s another catalyst for what the gallery wants to be in the future. And the legacy around that.”
Long-term planning at the National Gallery
So, how does an organisation with a centuries-old legacy look to the future? How far ahead can you plan?
“In the past, we’ve tended to have strategies that are about five years. We’re actually thinking about changing that approach. The general view is it will be a 10-year strategy – as difficult as it might be to try and imagine what the gallery will be, or needs to be, in 2035 – and what the challenges will be for that.”
“Most organisations have a very solid vision that normally stands the test of time and is linked to the charitable objectives, in our case, that were formed 200 years ago. They generally still stand up pretty well. If you remember why you’re here and who you’re for, then the strategy really should fall around that.
“And then I think for most museums, cultural organisations, heritage organisations, it’s about reach and scale, and how to find new ways of reaching more people.”
Challenges facing the sector
When considering the coming years, Gray sees that the museum sector is facing some significant challenges.
“There’s all the external factors that affect us that you can’t really plan for, whether that’s a future pandemic or what will happen to security risks and threats going forward. So, what’s our response to that? How do manage that? How do we prepare for that?
“The cost of living in London right now is really expensive. And I do worry about where how we’re going to recruit the next generation of staff and how we’re going to retain them. Yes, London is really great that we have some of these amazing national institutions. But you still need people. People make them, and without people working in them, they’re nothing. You might as well just close the doors. So how are we going to recruit – whether front-of-house staff or curators – I think that’s going to be a challenge.
“And the money. We’ve had pretty much standstill funding for a decade or so. You’ve just got to find new and inventive ways of raising the money to do what you want to do. And that’s not easy either.”
Sustainable museums
However pressing these concerns, there’s one issue which stands above all others.
“Front and central in my mind, I don’t think any of us can ignore climate change,” says Gray. “That’s an existential crisis, a crisis for our species. Museums are not immune from that. We’re going to have to think about how we adapt. Increasing temperatures and potential flooding and extreme weather have a big impact on our estate, our building, and how we look after the collection.”
The current capital projects incorporate various sustainable initiatives.
“The biggest thing we did was to reuse the existing buildings. The design makes very clever surgical cuts into the existing buildings so that all of the embedded carbon is already there, which makes the building a bit better.”
“Then, anything you’re ripping out you try and find new uses for, for example, toilets. We were able to make sure that any of our existing toilet infrastructure was given away to other charities or we upcycled or recycled to other organisations, including light fittings, so a very limited amount has gone into landfill. It’s a really great thing.
“Obviously, you’re trying to use the latest technology in terms of building management systems. You’re trying to reduce your reliance on fossil fuels, particularly gas. So, you’re thinking about air source heat pumps and those sorts of facilities, which we’ve got a rolling programme for. But also, just the simple stuff like LEDs, which we’ve been using since 2005.”
Collection care & climate change at the National Gallery
Looking to the future, Gray expects to be working towards net zero as far as is practically possible.
“Our buildings and estates are in relatively good condition compared to some of our peers, but we really are going to need to pay attention to that and be working towards net zero as much as we can for a 200-year-old leaky building. Audiences are going to demand that we explain what we’re doing – or not doing.
“Some of the paintings are almost 1000 years old, which means you’ve got to get the right climate conditions, the right humidity, and that requires energy. But equally, we can think about how we are procuring our energy. Should we be moving all to electric, for example, and therefore trying to rely on the UK having a very green grid?”
The nation’s gallery
The NG200 celebrations will extend throughout 2024 and into the summer of next year. Gray shares how the Gallery intends to build on this body of work and its priorities going forward:
“We’re using NG200 as an accelerator to be the nation’s gallery or the people’s gallery. All of us want to connect with more people. That’s why we exist: to connect more people with more art on-site in London and off-site around the nation. I can see the National Treasures idea becoming a much more familiar pattern going forward. And then online, which is a way of reaching more people digitally. Not just in the UK but around the world.”
“We are a leading research organisation, and everything we do is linked to research. So, we need to think about what that looks like and how we develop and go forth. And then actually caring for our collection.
“We’re broadly here for three things. Look after the paintings, acquire more and save them for the nation. And then, of course, share them with the nation.”
