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I do not wish to reopen old sores, nor do I wish to cause any offence to the Goldsmith family. But, for the sake of historical record, I cannot allow such myths to take root.
Sir John Major
London SW1
Sir: I am flattered by Jack Wakefield’s suggestion that I would make an ‘outstanding’ director of Tate Britain (Arts, 7 March). But I’d like to make it clear that I do not share his view of Penelope Curtis, who seems to me to be doing a good job under very difficult circumstances.
Insofar as Mr Wakefield’s criticisms relate to disappointing exhibitions, few surely would agree that Lord Leighton, Epstein or Lanyon are the answer; and his view that the ‘massive unseen collections present plenty of opportunity to mount outstanding exhibitions’ is idealistic. The conservation time required to bring most of these works up to exhibition condition would be prohibitive. Where his criticisms relate to a ‘decline in scholarship’, the decision to part with Ian Warrell and Annie Lyles undeniably was bad karma for Curtis, but as Mr Wakefield concedes, it was forced on her. Under Curtis, the Tate’s collections website, in terms of its scholarship, has become one of the best there is.
Many of Tate Britain’s problems result from the public perception of its relationship with Tate Modern, from Tate’s unwieldy management structures, and of course from the squeeze on public funding. Penelope Curtis works with the people who raise funds for Tate and manage its image, but she does not control them. Has Tate Britain now become the cultural equivalent of Manchester United — someone has to take the rap for a few poor results?
Alex Kidson
Liverpool
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer is right (Any other business, 14 March). Rona Fairhead should not for a second consider resignation as chairman of the BBC Trust on dubious grounds at the behest of Margaret Hodge, Labour chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. There is rank hypocrisy here. In 2003 Lady Hodge refused to resign as Children’s Minister despite the revelation that year of the Islington care homes child sex abuse scandal, which happened on her watch. Lady Hodge had been leader of Islington council at the time the abuse took place but it had been brushed under the carpet. Initially, Lady Hodge dismissed the scandal as gutter journalism. Later she blamed it on her officials. Finally, through her barrister, she apologised. So much for taking responsibility.
Gregory Shenkman
London W8
Sir: Your claim (Leading article, 14 March) that ‘Britain’s arts have never been in better shape’ is untrue: the numerous arts organisations damaged or destroyed by George Osborne’s spending cuts are memorialised by the website ‘Lost Arts’. The axing of state funding altogether, which you advocate, would be as deplorable as Isis’s bulldozing of Iraq’s historic sites.
T. Simon Couzens
London N4
Sir: Peter Hitchens tries hard to equate the European Union and Russia as comparable imperial powers (‘The empire-builders’, 7 March). But the difference is that the Russian loss of 700,000 square miles was at the desire of subject peoples, whereas the enlargement of the EU by 300,000 of those square miles was by the free will of some of those formerly subject peoples.
Roger Broad
London W2
Because you read about arts funding
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