Round the World (66)

in 200 Days

ROUND THE WORLD

66 THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, ENGLAND - 12 June 2025

Enter the new main entrance to our National Gallery.

Photograph Edmund Sumner - © The National Gallery London

When post-modernist architects Robert Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown designed the Sainsbury Wing extension of the National Gallery in 1991, the columns they installed in the ground floor entry were part of an intended spatial sequence conceived as a procession from shadow to light.

From Neil MacGregor, then director of the National Gallery: ‘Venturi and team wanted the foyer to have the feel of a mighty crypt leading to the lofty light filled galleries above. It was designed to be a subsidiary space – the beginning of a journey, not its destination.’

Architect Annabelle Selldorf’s recent remodelling, after two years of closure and opened for public view in May 2025, has changed all this. Now the entry space, reconfigured, brightly lit and partially double height, has become in itself the destination and the assured new main entrance to our National Gallery.

Photograph Edmund Sumner - © The National Gallery London

I was excited to see these alterations and to then ascend the original architects’ grand unchanged staircase albeit better lit with its transparent wall now in clear as opposed to tinted glass. At its summit I did find myself slightly disappointed at no longer being greeted by Francesco Botticini’s 1475 ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ but by Richard Long’s 2025 ‘Mud Sun’.

Photograph Edward Sumner - © The National Gallery London

There remain no prescribed routes when you turn left at the top of these stairs and enter the Sainsbury Wing’s seventeen spectacular interconnected galleries, now cleaned and repainted but otherwise unchanged by the recent architectural intervention. It was a great joy, as it has been so many times in the past, to be in these galleries and amongst our nation’s extraordinarily beautiful and spiritually uplifting collection of Medieval and Renaissance masterpieces.

© The National Gallery

© The National Gallery

© The National Gallery

© The National Gallery

In 1940, during the Blitz, Hampton’s Furniture Store which then occupied this site was destroyed by fire. By the late 1950’s it had become a waste ground. In 1958 the Government acquired the site as a possible location for an extension of the National Gallery but it wasn’t until 1981 that a competition was launched for its design. The winning architects were Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK), a design which the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, referred to as a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.’ This opinion, echoed by many, brought the project to a halt.

ABK’s 1982 Proposal - © PA Images

In 1985 the three Sainsbury brothers - John, Simon and Tim - agreed to fund the project in its entirety, selecting Venturi Scott Brown & Associates as their architects. In addition they paid for the restoration and reframing of many of the paintings in the collection. Queen Elizabeth II opened the completed Sainsbury Wing in July 1991. The building has since earned plaudits as one of the most sophisticated pieces of postmodern architecture in the country.

Revisiting these lofty light filled galleries and their exquisite treasures reminded me of the glamorous opening party we attended in celebration of the new wing’s opening; more importantly for us and never to be forgotten, of the friendship we were lucky enough to enjoy with the late Simon Sainsbury.

The Archangel Michael - Pietro Perugino 1496 - 1523

Tobias and the Angel - Andrea Verrocchio 1435 - 1488

Doge Leonardo Loredan - Giovanni Bellini 1435 - 1516

The Baptism of Christ - Piero della Francesca 1415 - 1492

Portrait of a Lady - Alesso Baldovinetti 1426 - 1499

St Bertin Altarpiece (detail) - Simon Marmion 1449 - 1489

Simon was a man of rare distinction, grace and humility and, as Chaucer describes: ‘a verray, parfit, gentil knyght.’ He was also one of the UK’s most generous recent philanthropists. The moment we told Simon about the charity we had founded, Aids Ark, he presented us with a substantial donation and continued to do the same every year for the rest of his life. For this he was much loved by us and for much else besides.

Simon Sainsbury 1930 - 2006 Photograph: Tony Snowdon © The Sainsbury Family Archive

Addendum:

Post Simon’s death, mutual friends James & Clare Kirkman, stepped into his shoes by agreeing to make the same generous annual donation to Aids Ark.

© Text Derek Frost 2025