Editing National Gallery (section)

===Second World War===
{{See also|Bwlch y Slaters quarry#Second World War}}
[[File:The Evacuation of Paintings From London during the Second World War HU36302.jpg|thumb|left|Paintings being evacuated from the National Gallery during the Second World War]]

Shortly before the outbreak of the [[Second World War]] the paintings were evacuated to locations in [[Wales]], including [[Penrhyn Castle]] and the university colleges of [[Bangor University|Bangor]] and [[Aberystwyth University|Aberystwyth]].{{sfn|Bosman|2008|p=25}} In 1940, during the [[Battle of France]], a more secure home was sought, and there were discussions about moving the paintings to Canada. This idea was firmly rejected by [[Winston Churchill]], who wrote in a telegram to Kenneth Clark, "bury them in caves or in cellars, but not a picture shall leave these islands".{{sfn|MacGregor|2004|p=43}} Instead a slate quarry at [[Bwlch y Slaters quarry|Manod]], near [[Blaenau Ffestiniog]] in North Wales, was requisitioned for the gallery's use.<ref name="NG">{{cite web |title=The Gallery in wartime |url=https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/our-history/the-gallery-in-wartime |website=The National Gallery |access-date=11 November 2023}}</ref> In the seclusion afforded by the paintings' new location, the Keeper (and future director) [[Martin Davies (museum director)|Martin Davies]] began to compile scholarly catalogues on the collection, with assistance of the gallery's library which was also stored in the quarry. The move to Manod confirmed the importance of storing paintings at a constant temperature and humidity, something the gallery's conservators had long suspected but had hitherto been unable to prove.{{sfn|Bosman|2008|p=79}} This eventually resulted in the first air-conditioned gallery opening in 1949.<ref name="BakerHenry" />

For the course of the war [[Myra Hess]] and other musicians, such as [[Moura Lympany]], gave daily lunch-time recitals in the empty building in Trafalgar Square, to raise public morale as every concert hall in London was closed.<ref name="NG-Hess">{{cite web |title=The Myra Hess concerts |url=https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/history/the-myra-hess-concerts |website=The National Gallery-History |publisher=The National Gallery |access-date=11 November 2023}}</ref>{{sfn|Bosman|2008|p=35}} Art exhibitions were held at the gallery as a complement to the recitals. The first of these was ''British Painting since Whistler'' in 1940, organised by [[Lillian Browse]],<ref name=farr>Farr, Dennis (2006). [http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/newsletter/spring_2006/p04browse.shtml "Empathy for Art and Artists: Lillian Browse, 1906–2005"]. ''Newsletter'' of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Issue 21: Spring 2006. Accessed March 2012. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007045136/http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/newsletter/spring_2006/p04browse.shtml |date=7 October 2013}}</ref> who also mounted the major joint retrospective ''Exhibition of Paintings by Sir [[William Nicholson (artist)|William Nicholson]] and [[Jack B. Yeats]]'' held from 1 January to 15 March 1942, which was seen by 10,518 visitors.<ref name=1942cat>Clark, Sir Kenneth (1942). ''Exhibition of Paintings by Sir William Nicholson and Jack B. Yeats'', exhibition catalogue. London: National Gallery.</ref><ref name=reed>Reed, Patricia (2011). ''William Nicholson: Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings''. London; New Haven: Modern Art Press, Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978 0 300 17054 2}}. pp. 636–638</ref> Exhibitions of work by war artists, including [[Paul Nash (artist)|Paul Nash]], [[Henry Moore]] and [[Stanley Spencer]], were also held; the [[War Artists' Advisory Committee]] had been set up by Clark in order "to keep artists at work on any pretext".{{sfn|Bosman|2008|pp=91–93}} In 1941, a request from an artist to see [[Rembrandt]]'s ''Portrait of Margaretha de Geer'' (a new acquisition) resulted in the "Picture of the Month" scheme, in which a single painting was removed from Manod and exhibited to the general public in the National Gallery each month. The art critic [[Herbert Read]], writing that year, called the National Gallery "a defiant outpost of culture right in the middle of a bombed and shattered metropolis".{{sfn|Bosman|2008|p=99}} The paintings returned to Trafalgar Square in 1945.