The Times - UK (2021-11-11)

the times | Thursday November 11 2021 25

News

£57 million, has

taken three years

to complete.

A pokey complex

of first-floor spaces

have been transformed

into a gallery amid which

medieval and early

Renaissance treasures gleam. In the

past too many visitors would have

bypassed them completely. Another

newly created gallery showcases

projects that reveal the breadth of the

Courtauld’s vistas (it opens with a

show of photographs of 1940s

Kurdistan from the Courtauld’s

Conway collection); and another,

emphatically domestic in its

decoration and scale, puts items from

the institute’s Bloomsbury and

Omega collection on display.

The climax is the Great Room, the

theatrical gallery that was once home

of the Royal Academy’s annual

Summer Exhibition. It used to be the

stage on which culture strutted its most

fashionable stuff. When the Courtauld

moved in there, however, about 30

years ago, it was subdivided and all

sense of proportion or splendour was

obscured. Now it reclaims its drama.

Britain’s greatest collection of

impressionist and post-impressionist

paintings — works by some of the

most popular masters glow with what

feels like new life. Some of the most

celebrated images rise afresh, and not

least when a new emphasis is placed

on their links with the contemporary.

Cecily Brown riffs on the collection in

a recent commission installed on the

staircase’s curved wall. Even if you

(like me) don’t like the painting, you

can appreciate its intellectual point.

Lighting is the key to this overhaul

— even in galleries in which it might

appear that little has been done. Once,

pictures dangled from long clunky

chains and each was equipped with an

individual picture light. Reflections

were maddening. Now with subtle

lighting rails and hangings cunningly

discreet — not to mention state-of-

the-art glass that renders barriers

obsolete — visitors can enjoy a more

intimate encounter with the art.

You won’t see more works than

previously. Quality not quantity

seems to be the curatorial motto. But

the reopening of this, the most calmly

self-confident of our cultural spaces,

is all the more to be relished for that.

The Courtauld Gallery (courtauld.ac.uk)

reopens on November 19

New works such as Cecily Brown’s Unmoored from her reflection, and works by popular masters, such as Manet, are beautifully displayed

Splendour restored as gallery glows with new life

Reopening

Courtauld Gallery, WC2

HHHHH

Even the fire extinguishers look a cut
above average. They shine like
brushed copper. But then this is
precisely what you should expect
from the Courtauld, purveyor of lofty
aesthetic taste to the public. It’s more
than just practicalities that
matter in a place like this.
Next week the
Courtauld Gallery
will finally reopen
after a huge and
(thanks to a
pandemic and the
discovery of a
medieval cesspit
in the basement)
overlong
redevelopment.
You will appreciate
the improvements
even before you enter
Somerset House. The
main entrance (now with
proper wheelchair access) has been
modified to reduce congestion and
with it the queues that used to stretch
down the Strand. That’s just the start
of a top-to-bottom overhaul that, led
by Witherford Watson Mann, the
Stirling prizewinning architecture
firm, and costing not far short of

Exhibition

Rachel Campbell-Johnston

VICKIE FLORES/EPA

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