Making acquisitions

With budgets tight and the organisational demands placed on staff increasing, it is not surprising that Caroline Douglas, the director of the Contemporary Art Society (CAS), cites “time and money” as the two main challenges facing curators. This obviously creates challenges for museums looking to acquire works for their collections.

“We are aware of such deep cuts in museums that there are often not full-time curatorial staff,” says Douglas. “When you put that much pressure on staff it becomes almost impossible to do proper research, both into the existing collection as well as what might be added to it.”

For museums that are thinking about acquiring items, it is often a good idea to make sure they know what they already have, says Eleanor McGrath, the senior programmes manager for acquisitions at national fundraising charity the Art Fund – or they risk losing objects that are crucial to telling their stories.

“In your own gallery or museum, what objects are on loan? What are those key items that might be taken or moved, or that you might not have a strong commitment to get first refusal on if the owner decides to sell them, and what are those relationships with the owners like?”

The Museums Association’s Empowering Collections report makes a number of recommendations related to acquiring items for collections. These include carrying out research to understand what communities want from collections and also working with the public on acquisitions.

The Empowering Collections report says: “Museums should collect strategically and in partnership with museum users and communities, recognising that many areas of collecting can be carried out at relatively low cost and with substantial social impact. Museums should also collaborate more closely with each other when collecting, and have better knowledge about what other institutions hold.”

The challenges created by a lack of time and money are keenly felt in local authority museums. Larger institutions often have dedicated fundraising teams, but smaller museums frequently rely on curators or other staff to identify potential acquisitions and raise the money to buy them.

McGrath is aware of these challenges from talking to a wide range of people in the sector, from dedicated development teams in larger organisations through to curators for smaller museums and representatives from friends groups.

“We are always happy to speak to anyone directly, even if they're not at the stage yet where they've even told their colleagues that they want to start fundraising,” says McGrath. “Often it's advice you get before you start that process that is important for acquisitions.

“We also know that with fundraising applications generally – not only for acquisitions – that they can be time-consuming things to put together, particularly when you're trying to juggle multiple funders for just one project, and constantly having to meet all of their different aims and different deadlines.

“There is also the issue of time-sensitivity. For example, if it's an export-stopped piece of art [where government has temporarily disallowed a work’s export for a limited period in order to allow domestic buyers to be found], there are strict deadlines around that can't move – so we've been looking at consulting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England about how that system can be improved to better support people to fundraise within those very strict deadlines.”

In cases where time is an issue, museum staff should always get in touch with the Art Fund, says McGrath, who points to the short-notice acquisition of two paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby in 2016 as an instructive case study. Derby Museums, despite holding the largest collection of the painter’s work in the world, did not have any such examples of the artist’s depictions of the Derbyshire countryside.

It had the opportunity to fill this gap in its collection, but only heard of the planned sale of the two works nine days before the auction at Christie’s in New York.

Jonathan Wallis, then the head of museums at Derby Museums, said at the time: “Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, Art Fund, the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and the Friends of Derby Museums, we had the funds, but we still needed to secure them. On the evening there was one other bidder, but in the end we managed to [buy the paintings for] well below their lower estimate of $300,000. We’re absolutely thrilled.”

McGrath says that the Art Fund gave Derby a funding decision within a week.

Curators’ confidence and skills are both important factors in acquisitions, in terms of professional development and in having the support of their institution.

“It’s about management that respects curators and empowers them to develop knowledge and relationships that will be dramatically to the institution's benefit,” says Douglas. “That means respecting curators’ expertise, and respecting their need for travel to meet people.

“We try to support museums and the professionals in them as actively as we can. So it's not just about buying work with them. It's always a research-led process, in collaboration, and we run a professional development programme all year round.”

Curators may be challenged by making acquisitions outside their personal areas of expertise, says McGrath, in which case research and support are vital; or they might not have made acquisitions before, particularly if they are early in their career.

“We want to make sure that professionals feel supported to embed curatorial skills in all areas,” she says. “In relation to acquisitions we offer our advice and guidance all the time – if people just want to sense-test something with us, we're always really happy to talk about it.”

Simon Brown is the chair of the Museums Association Beecroft Bequest, which makes grants of up to £10,000 to support the purchase of fine or decorative arts or other items of aesthetic merit from no later than 1800. He is also the curator of collections at Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, and the project curator at the National Justice Museum in Nottingham.

“I think the particular value of the fund is the ease of the application process,” says Brown. “We ask that applicants explain how it's going to be displayed and how it meets their collecting policy, but because institutions must be Accredited, everything has to be in place already. That's what makes it a smooth process.

“It's a very approachable fund in terms of identifying that you want to get something; identifying that it meets the criteria; and applying. It's quite rare to have that.”

Brown believes that the Beecroft can help “in a micro way” with what he sees as a central problem for museums when making acquisitions: “I think the art market is so overheated, beyond the realms of reality, because artworks are seen as investments for private buyers. I cannot think of two less compatible worlds than investment opportunities for the super-rich, and public service museums and galleries.”

He agrees with Douglas and McGrath that time and money are the biggest challenges for museum professionals. A strategic focus is necessary, he says, and doing research and laying the groundwork properly are also important.

Luckily, not all acquisitions need to be costly. Newstead Abbey was the ancestral home of Lord Byron, and in 2013, local magazine LeftLion produced a cover by artist Rikki Marr that depicted local football legend Bryan Clough as Lord Byron. A copy of the paper is Brown’s latest acquisition for Newstead, and he’s recently been to collect it from the paper’s office – for nothing.