Editing Kenneth Clark (section)

===National Gallery===
In 1933 the director of the [[National Gallery]] in London, [[Augustus Daniel|Sir Augustus Daniel]], was aged sixty-seven, and due to retire at the end of the year. His assistant director, [[William George Constable|W. G. Constable]], who had been in line to succeed him, had moved to the new [[Courtauld Institute of Art]] as its director in 1932.<ref>[[Alec Clifton-Taylor|Clifton-Taylor, Alec]], rev. Rosemary Mitchell. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30960 "Constable, William George (1887–1976)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, retrieved 18 June 2017 {{ODNBsub}}; and Stourton, pp. 89–90</ref> The historian [[Peter Stansky]] writes that behind the scenes the National Gallery "was in considerable turmoil; the staff and the trustees were in a state of continual warfare with each other."<ref>Stansky, p. 189</ref> The chairman of the trustees, [[Arthur Lee, 1st Viscount Lee of Fareham|Lord Lee]], convinced the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]], [[Ramsay MacDonald]], that Clark would be the best appointment, acceptable to the professional staff and the trustees, and able to restore harmony.<ref>Stansky, pp. 189–190; and Stourton, p. 90</ref> When he received MacDonald's offer of the post, Clark was not enthusiastic. He thought himself too young, aged 30, and once again felt torn between a scholarly and an administrative career. He accepted the directorship in January 1934, although, as he wrote to Berenson, "in between being the manager of a large department store I shall have to be a professional entertainer to the landed and official classes".<ref>Cumming, p. 144</ref>[[File:National Gallery London 2013 March.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|The [[National Gallery]], [[Trafalgar Square]], London]]At about the same time as accepting MacDonald's offer of the directorship, Clark had declined one from [[George V of the United Kingdom|King George V]]'s officials to succeed [[C. H. Collins Baker]] as [[Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures|Surveyor of the King's Pictures]]. He felt that he could not do justice to the post in tandem with his new duties at the gallery.{{refn|At the National Gallery, Clark was responsible for a collection of about 2,000 paintings: the royal collection numbered 7,000.<ref>Stourton, p. 100</ref>|group= n}} The king, determined to succeed where his staff had failed, went with [[Mary of Teck|Queen Mary]] to the National Gallery and persuaded Clark to change his mind.<ref>Stourton, pp. 1–2</ref> The appointment was announced in ''[[The London Gazette]]'' in July 1934;<ref>"Surveyor of the King's Pictures", ''The Times'', 4 July 1934, p. 14</ref> Clark held the post for the next ten years.<ref>"The King's Pictures", ''The Times'', 28 April 1945, p. 4</ref>

Clark believed in making fine art accessible to everyone, and while at the National Gallery he devised many initiatives with this aim in mind. In an editorial, ''[[The Burlington Magazine]]'' said, "Clark put all his insight and imagination into making the National Gallery a more sympathetic place in which the visitor could enjoy a great collection of European paintings".<ref name=burlington>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/877352 "Kenneth Clark at 70"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227090636/https://www.jstor.org/stable/877352 |date=27 February 2018 }}, ''The Burlington Magazine'', Vol. 115, No. 844 (July 1973), pp. 415–416 {{subscription required}}</ref> He had rooms re-hung and frames improved; by 1935 he had achieved the installation of a laboratory and introduced electric lighting, which made evening opening possible for the first time. A programme of cleaning was begun, despite sporadic sniping from those opposed in principle to cleaning old pictures;<ref name=burlington/><ref>Constable, W. G. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v162/n4109/abs/162166a0.html "Cleaning and Care of the National Gallery Pictures"], ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', 31 July 1948</ref> experimentally, the glass was removed from some pictures.<ref name=burlington/>{{refn|In their letter of congratulation on his appointment as director, [[Vanessa Bell]] and [[Duncan Grant]] had expressed the hope that he would remove the glass from every picture in the gallery.<ref>Stourton, pp. 90–91</ref>|group= n}}  In several years he had the gallery opened two hours earlier than usual on the day of the [[FA Cup Final]], for the benefit of people coming to London for the match.<ref>"News in Brief", ''The Times'', 17 April 1936, p. 10; and 30 April 1937, p. 13</ref>

Clark wrote and lectured during the decade. The annotated catalogue of the royal collection of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, on which he had begun work in 1929, was published in 1935, to highly favourable reviews; eighty years later [[Oxford Art Online]] called it "a work of firm scholarship, the conclusions of which have stood the test of time".<ref name=grove>Cast, David. [http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T017955 "Clark, Kenneth"], Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 18 June 2017 {{subscription required}}</ref> Another 1935 publication by Clark offended some in the avant-garde: an essay, published in ''[[The Listener (magazine)|The Listener]]'', "The Future of Painting", in which he rebuked [[surrealism|surrealists]] on the one hand and [[abstract art]]ists on the other for claiming to represent the future of art. He judged both as too elitist and too specialised – "the end of a period of self-consciousness, inbreeding and exhaustion". He maintained that good art must be accessible to everyone and must be rooted in the observable world.<ref>Clark, Kenneth "The Future of Painting", ''The Listener'', 2 October 1935, pp. 543–545</ref> During the 1930s Clark was in demand as a lecturer, and he frequently used his research for his talks as the basis of his books. In 1936 he gave the Ryerson Lectures at [[Yale University]]. From these came his study of Leonardo, published three years later; it too, attracted much praise, at the time and subsequently.<ref name=grove/>
[[File:Scenes from Tebaldeo's Eclogues.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|One of four paintings by [[Andrea Previtali]] which Clark attributed to [[Giorgione]] in 1937]]
''The Burlington Magazine'', looking back at Clark's time at the gallery, singled out among the works acquired under his leadership the seven panels forming [[Sassetta]]'s San Sepolcro Altarpiece from the fifteenth century, four works by [[Giovanni di Paolo]] from the same period, [[Niccolò dell'Abate]]'s ''The Death of Eurydice'' from the sixteenth century and [[Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres|Ingres]]' ''[[Madame Moitessier]]'' from the nineteenth.<ref>Watson F. J. B. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/881390 "Kenneth Clark (1903–1983)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227090636/https://www.jstor.org/stable/881390 |date=27 February 2018 }}, ''The Burlington Magazine'', Vol. 125, No. 968 (November 1983), pp. 690–691 {{subscription required}}</ref>  Other important acquisitions, listed by Piper, were [[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]]'s ''Watering Place'', [[John Constable|Constable]]'s ''Hadleigh Castle'', [[Rembrandt]]'s ''Saskia as Flora'', and [[Nicolas Poussin|Poussin]]'s ''[[The Adoration of the Golden Calf]]''.<ref name=dnb/>

One of Clark's least successful acts as director was buying four early-sixteenth century paintings now known as ''[[Scenes from Tebaldeo's Eclogues]]''.<ref name=scenes>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/scenes-from-tebaldeos-eclogues "Scenes from Tebaldeo's Eclogues"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130407232129/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/scenes-from-tebaldeos-eclogues |date=7 April 2013 }}, National Gallery, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref> He saw them in 1937 in the possession of a dealer in Vienna,<ref name=scenes/> and against the united advice of his professional staff he persuaded the trustees to buy them.<ref name=dnb/> He believed them to be by [[Giorgione]], whose work he considered inadequately represented in the gallery at the time.{{refn|There are only a handful of attested paintings by Giorgione anywhere in the world.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198604761.001.0001/acref-9780198604761-e-1428 "Giorgione"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art'', Oxford University Press, 2004 {{subscription))</ref> The National Gallery in 2025 has two: ''The Adoration of the Kings'', bought in 1884,<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/giorgione-the-adoration-of-the-kings "The Adoration of the Kings"], National Gallery. Retrieved 1 January 2025</ref> and {{lang|it|Il Tramonto}} (The Sunset), bought in 1961.<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/giorgione-il-tramonto-the-sunset "Il Tramonto"], National Gallery. Retrieved 1 January 2025</ref>|group=n}} The trustees authorised the expenditure of £14,000 of public funds and the paintings went on display in the gallery with considerable fanfare.<ref name=scenes/> His staff did not accept the attribution to Giorgione, and within a year scholarly research established the paintings as the work of [[Andrea Previtali]], one of Giorgione's minor contemporaries.<ref name=scenes/> The British press protested at the waste of taxpayers' money, Clark's reputation suffered a considerable blow, and his relations with his professional team, already uneasy, were further strained.<ref name=dnb/>{{refn|Relations between Clark and his subordinates had been tense for some years: two of his senior officials, Harold Kay and [[Martin Davies (museum director)|Martin Davies]], felt their autonomy undermined by what they saw as Clark's dictatorial management style.<ref>Conlin, p. 158</ref>|group= n}}

====Wartime====
The approach of war with Germany in 1939 obliged Clark and his colleagues to consider how to protect the National Gallery's collection from bombing raids. It was agreed that all the works of art must be moved out of central London, where they were acutely vulnerable. One suggestion was to send them to Canada for safekeeping, but by this time the war had started and Clark was worried about the possibility of submarine attacks on the ships taking the collection across the Atlantic; he was not displeased when the prime minister, [[Winston Churchill]], vetoed the idea: "Hide them in caves and cellars, but not one picture shall leave this island."<ref name=war2>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-gallery-in-wartime/the-gallery-in-wartime?viewPage=2 "The Gallery in wartime"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205185058/https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-gallery-in-wartime/the-gallery-in-wartime?viewPage=2 |date=5 February 2018 }}, The National Gallery, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref> A [[Bwlch y Slaters quarry|disused slate mine]] near [[Blaenau Ffestiniog]] in north Wales was chosen as the store. To protect the paintings special storage compartments were constructed, and from careful monitoring of the collection discoveries were made about control of temperature and humidity that benefited its care and display when back in London after the war.<ref name=war2/>

[[File:Myra Hess.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.05|[[Myra Hess]], inspiration and mainstay of the National Gallery's wartime concerts]]
With an empty gallery to preside over, Clark contemplated volunteering for the [[Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve]], but was recruited, at Lord Lee's instigation, into the newly formed [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]], where he was put in charge of the film division, and was later promoted to be controller of home publicity.<ref>Stourton, pp. 178–179 and 184</ref> He set up the [[War Artists' Advisory Committee]], and persuaded the government to employ official [[war artists]] in considerable numbers.  There were up to two hundred engaged under Clark's initiative. Those designated "official war artists" included [[Edward Ardizzone]], [[Paul Nash (artist)|Paul]] and [[John Nash (artist)|John Nash]], [[Mervyn Peake]], [[John Piper (artist)|John Piper]] and [[Graham Sutherland]].<ref>Foss, pp. 196–201</ref> Artists employed on short-term contracts included [[Jacob Epstein]], [[Laura Knight]], [[L. S. Lowry]], [[Henry Moore]] and [[Stanley Spencer]].<ref>Foss, p. 202</ref>

Although the pictures were in storage, Clark kept the National Gallery open to the public during the war, hosting a celebrated series of lunchtime and early evening concerts. They were the inspiration of the pianist [[Myra Hess]], whose idea Clark greeted with delight, as a suitable way for the building to be "used again for its true purposes, the enjoyment of beauty."<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/myra-hess-concerts/how-the-concerts-started "The Myra Hess Concerts: How the concerts started (1)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170330103506/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/myra-hess-concerts/how-the-concerts-started |date=30 March 2017 }}, National Gallery, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref> There was no advance booking, and audience members were free to eat their sandwiches and walk in or out during breaks in the performance.<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-myra-hess-concerts/how-the-concerts-started?viewPage=3 "The Myra Hess Concerts: How the concerts started (2)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205184821/https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-myra-hess-concerts/how-the-concerts-started?viewPage=3 |date=5 February 2018 }}, National Gallery, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref> The concerts were an immediate and enormous success. ''[[The Musical Times]]'' commented, "Countless Londoners and visitors to London, civilian and service alike, came to look on the concerts as a haven of sanity in a distraught world."<ref>Ferguson, Howard. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/953712 "Dame Myra Hess"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227090636/https://www.jstor.org/stable/953712 |date=27 February 2018 }},   ''The Musical Times'', Vol. 107, No. 1475 (January 1966), p. 59 {{subscription required}}</ref> 1,698 concerts were given to an aggregate audience of more than 750,000 people.<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-myra-hess-concerts/the-music?viewPage=3 "The Myra Hess Concerts: The Music"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205185025/https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/the-myra-hess-concerts/the-music?viewPage=3 |date=5 February 2018 }}, National Gallery, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref> Clark instituted an additional public attraction of a monthly featured picture brought from storage and exhibited along with explanatory material. The institution of a "picture of the month" was retained after the war, and, at 2025, has continued to the present day.<ref>[https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/picture-of-the-month/picture-of-the-month-december-2024 "Picture of the month"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241230132726/https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/picture-of-the-month/picture-of-the-month-december-2024 |date=30 December 2024 }}, National Gallery, December 2024</ref>

In 1945, after overseeing the return of the collections to the National Gallery, Clark resigned as director, intending to devote himself to writing. During the war years he had published little. For the gallery he wrote a slim volume about Constable's ''[[The Hay Wain]]'' (1944); from a lecture he gave in 1944 he published a short treatise on [[Leon Battista Alberti]]'s ''[[De pictura|On Painting]]'' (1944). The following year he contributed an introduction and notes to a volume on Florentine paintings in a series of art books published by [[Faber and Faber]]. The three publications totalled fewer than eighty pages between them.<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13051015 "The Hay Wain"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205191920/http://www.worldcat.org/title/hay-wain-in-the-national-gallery-london/oclc/13051015%26referer%3Dbrief_results |date=5 February 2018 }}, [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/217132247 "Leon Battista Albert On Painting"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205184848/http://www.worldcat.org/title/leon-battista-alberti-on-painting/oclc/217132247?ht=edition&referer=di |date=5 February 2018 }}, and [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/940292484 "Florentine Paintings"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180205184819/http://www.worldcat.org/title/florentine-paintings-fifteenth-century/oclc/940292484?referer=di&ht=edition |date=5 February 2018 }}, WorldCat, retrieved 18 June 2017</ref>