Southampton City Art Gallery awarded grant for three-year sculpture conservation project

New funding from George Dannatt Trust announced
Direct result of Gabo Trust Sculpture Collection Survey for Southampton City Art Gallery

Very few UK museums have sufficient funds to employ, on their permanent staff, expert conservators of modern and contemporary sculpture. Responding to this need, the Gabo Trust created a grant for specialist surveys of modern and contemporary sculpture collections. To date, the Trust has awarded grants to Southampton City Art Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, enabling each of them to employ an independent conservator to advise staff on the cleaning, conservation and storage of individual items and their entire collections. All of the above museums have benefitted greatly from the project.

The survey at Southampton City Art Gallery was carried out in 2014, and helped to define a sustainable programme of care for the Gallery’s modern and contemporary sculpture collection, and the most efficient deployment of staff to achieve these aims. As a result of this advice, the Gallery has just announced funding from the George Dannatt Trust for a three-year project to treat the sculptures highlighted in the survey and to pay for the training of an assistant conservator to carry out much of the needed conservation. This is Southampton City Art Gallery’s second successful funding application resulting from the Gabo Trust Survey. In 2015, the Gallery received funding from the Henry Moore Foundation for the conservation of specific sculptures.  

The Gabo Trust is delighted Southampton City Art Gallery has been able to build upon the sculpture survey it has enabled and welcomes further
proposals from museums and galleries to survey their modern and contemporary sculpture collections. For further information, please see the funding for sculpture surveys section on our website.