Leslie Ramos, the author of a forthcoming book on give art, said Britain “just doesn’t have the culture of philanthropy like the US, especially for the arts.” Several major patrons recently passed away, she added, and younger donors didn’t fill the gap. They prefer to donate to social justice causes or organizations that fight climate change, she said.

Paul Ramsbottom, the director of the Wolfson Foundation, one of Britain’s largest institutional art donors, which donated about $630,000 to refurbish the National Portrait Gallery, said funds like his were seeing a “rising tide” of applications that they couldn’t afford to pay. to fulfil.

This increasing reliance on donors is due to several major British museums embarking on a multi-year overhaul. The British Museum is expected to announce a renovation soon The Financial Times has reported that it will cost £1 billion, about $1.3 billion. The National Gallery has also tried Raising £95 million for a refurbishment. In May, Anh Nguyen, the museum’s development director, told an audience of donors and reporters that trying to secure the money had given her “sleepless nights” and “heart palpitations.”

Cullinan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, said the key to attracting donors’ attention is an attractive project. Before the renovation, the National Portrait Gallery – founded in 1856 with the idea of ​​displaying portraits of Britain’s most eminent people – was a much-loved institution, he said, but there was clearly room for improvement. Visitors could easily miss the former entrance, a small passage on a busy street. Inside, he added, the museum’s hallways often felt like a rabbit hole, and some exhibits had been “untouched for 30 years.” The only educational space was “in a dingy basement,” he added.

The displays were not representative of contemporary Britain, Cullinan said: Only 3 percent of the portraits on the walls were of people of color. (After the renovation, that rose to 11 percent.)