History of the Department
The National Gallery’s art handling department officially came into being on the 31st of August 1992. As the newly recruited head of team I had started two weeks earlier on the 17th in order to gain some idea of how things operated at the gallery and meet some of the many members of staff we would be working with in the coming years. The team was set up by Patricia Goddard a conservator who the gallery had hired as their picture movements officer roughly three years earlier.
As the picture movements officer Trish Goddard oversaw all the gallery’s picture movements which were carried out by a team of the gallery’s security personnel known collectively as the special working party. They were handpicked by their head of team whose name was Peter Brett. Peter had been doing the job for 26 years and was close to retirement. He had a large practical knowledge of the collection and could tell you where most of the pictures were at any given time without having access to TMS or any of the systems we have in place today. Although the special working party were capable of carry out the work they did with supervision, because they were officially part of the security department there were often conflicts of interest and the personnel who Peter would choose were taught on the job with no previous art handling experience. This was not an ideal situation, given the quality and prestige of The National Gallery’s collection.
As the gallery was moving towards mounting more temporary exhibitions with the opening of the Sainsbury wing a year earlier Trish felt that what was needed urgently was a team of experienced art handlers who would be dedicated to the care of the gallery’s collection and could be relied on to get the work done when it was required and without having to juggle it with their security duties. It took her and the head of exhibitions (Michael Wilson) two years to convince the gallery they needed a dedicated team, and this was to be the beginning of a new chapter in how the gallery would manage the movement of its pictures and loans to and from the collection.
My first two weeks at the gallery went by in a whirlwind of activity. I worked with Peter, his supervisor (Colin Lyonette) and of course the special working party who were made up of a core team which depending on the day and the jobs would be supplemented with other members of the security department who would be called in to assist when needed. Out of this core team there were four who had successfully interviewed for the new department that was about to be launched. They were John Thompson, Ray Butcher, Nigel Stevens and Stewart Wilson. John, Ray and Nigel had all worked for the security department as warders for years but had become tried and tested members of Peter’s core team so had done a lot of work with the special working party. Stewart had joined the gallery just over a year earlier as a warder but on the condition that he would be able to work with the special working party. He was a lot younger than the others and was a practising artist in his spare time. He knew the new department was in the process of being developed and joined the gallery with a view to gaining a place in there when it was finally formed.
On the morning of the 31st of August, I went to collect the new team members from the waiting room by the Wilkins entrance. The new arrivals were Mark Slattery, Matthew Thompson and Dominic Moore. Mark and Matthew had come from art transport and service companies (as had I) and Dominic came from working over at the South Bank Centre. It was an understatement to say this was quite a change for all us moving to an institution like The National Gallery. Everything was a great deal more regimented and systems were in place for most of the things we did.
Over the first year as we gained confidence and became conversant with what we were expected to do we were able to start making changes to the way we operated. There were many archaic practises and pieces of equipment in place which needed updating. We added drawers and upgraded the two old wooden picture trolleys which seemed to have been in use since the 50’s or 60’s possibly even earlier than that. We got rid of slot head screws which seemed to be the gold standard when the rest of the world had moved over to cross headed screws decades before. We bought cordless drill drivers and made up new skates to replace the old piano wheels (which were all the team had available up till then.)
We were very fortunate in that Trish was keen to see us develop our roll and turn the art handling department into a world class unit. Looking back from my vantage point today I believe that vision has been realized beyond anything we could have imagined back at the beginning and continues to be improved on constantly. We have gone from a gallery where all work at height was done off tall apex ladders which would make any health and safety officer shudder to Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (MEWPS).
We have developed and had manufactured a range of new adjustable picture trolleys to help us move pictures and make their installation simpler and safer along with a case roller to make the packing and unpacking of paintings safer and easier. We have also redesigned and changed most of the hanging hardware the gallery uses and are continuing to innovate and improve the systems we have in place. It is exciting to see how much we have changed and improved our equipment and methods of working over the years. As we look to the future it is safe to say that we will not be stopping the designing and innovating that characterises this department any time soon.
Senior Art Handler