Policy & Campaigns

Sally Wrampling
Head of Policy and Research
swrampling@artfund.org

Jamie Hewitt
Public Affairs Manager
jhewitt@artfund.org

 
Image: Japanese, Portrait of a Nobleman, 1200-1300. V&A, London. ArtFunded 1967.

The Art Fund conducts its own research to better understand the needs of museums and those that visit them.

Our research helps inform The Art Fund's policies and, in turn, our campaigning priorities.  We also analyse research undertaken by others in the arts world.

Research

Our research falls under three main headings:
Art and the PublicArt and MuseumsArt and Tax

Art and the Public: public value of art collections
Art and the Public: University of Leicester, PhD research
Art and Museums: Museums Survey
Art and Museums: Museum Collecting, an International Comparison
Art and Museums: The Collecting Challenge
Art and Tax: Private Collections in the Public Domain

Art and the Public

New Research

Art Fund publishes research into the public value of art collections

Copyright Jason Lock

Eight years after free admission to museums and galleries was introduced, The Art Fund releases its new research, Free to see – but what’s next?, exploring what has happened since the national museums freely opened their doors, and what value the British public places on their national art collection.

The research finds that free admission is highly valued and boosts the sense of public ownership of national museums. But it also finds that other barriers still remain which prevent people from visiting museums and galleries.

Read the press release
Read the executive summary
Read the full report Free to See: but what's next?


Current research

Copyright Mark Crick

The Art Fund is currently working with the University of Leicester to find out more about why and how people are moved by art in museums and galleries.

Read the press release

Art and Museums

 

Current Research

The Art Fund launches its second Museums Survey - 20 October 2009


Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeThe Art Fund's second nationwide museums and galleries survey shows that predictions of the Great British "Staycation" proved accurate with half of UK museums and galleries seeing an increase in visitors between March and September 2009, including a fifth of museums who saw a rise in visitors of over 10%.

Download the survey factsheet
Read the press release

Read more in the London Evening Standard and the Guardian.

The Art Fund Museums Survey - 29 April 2009


Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The Art Fund has published the results of its nationwide survey of how museums and galleries are faring in the recession. Our survey shows that more people are visiting museums across the UK and that museums expect this trend to continue over the summer. However, many museums are also reporting budget cuts, and are worried these will deepen.

This report underlines the public importance of our museums and galleries. We hope that it will help to encourage Ministers and local authorities to avoid making further cuts in these services – if at all possible.

Download the survey factsheet
Read the press release

Listen to David Barrie talking to John Wilson about the survey on Radio 4's Front Row
Read more in the Financial Times
Read more in the Daily Mail
Read more in the Art Newspaper
Read more in the Glasgow Herald

Museum Collecting: An International Comparison

Tate Modern, London

The Art Fund has published research which compares the purchasing power of the UK’s major museums with some of their counterparts abroad. The new research, the first of its kind, shows that the UK’s leading art museums lag behind other world-class museums when it comes to money available to buy new works of art for their collections.

Download The Art Fund League Table and press release

The Collecting Challenge: The Art Fund Museum Survey 2006

The Collecting Challenge

The Art Fund published the full report of its UK-wide research into acquisitions in May 2006. The findings reveal a crisis in funding but also a lack of will on behalf of central and local government to support collecting. The Art Fund is calling on both central and local government to recognise the importance of collecting to the work of museums.

The research, the first authoritative study of UK collecting, took a detailed look at acquisitions in UK museums – of all types, and across all regions – over the last five years. It was undertaken with the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

The research took place between November 2005 and April 2006 and over 300 museums took part– one sixth of all those accredited. The findings of the on-line survey were supplemented with qualitative data gathered from a series of one-to-one interviews with museum professionals.

Related Links

Museum survey full report
Museum survey key findings
Download press release
Freshminds
Read more in The Times
Read more in The Independent 


Art and Tax

Private Collections in the Public Domain

Private collections in the public domain

In 2007 The Art Fund worked with tax lawyers Allen & Overy to compile a study of tax regimes in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the US, to examine the extent to which they facilitate the enjoyment of privately owned collections. 

In particular, the paper highlights the kind of mechanisms that governments have developed to encourage private owners to open up their collections for enjoyment by the public, or to transfer ownership of their collections to the public domain. It reveals that most jurisdictions offer incentives to encourage outright gifts of works of art to cultural institutions with the conspicuous absence in the UK of income tax relief for gifts of works of art. 

Download Private Collections in the Public Domain

 

 
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