Weston Loan Programme Brings Masterpieces to Small UK Museums

The Art Fund, a British association founded in 1903, will launch a new edition of its Weston Loan Programme in spring 2021. The initiative, supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation, enables smaller museums to borrow works from major national collections. For the 2021 programme, £320,000 has been allocated to organize 18 exhibitions. Notable loans include a 16th-century portrait of Richard III from the National Portrait Gallery to the Yorkshire Museum, and Antony Gormley's 'Field for the British Isles' (1993) from the Arts Council Collection to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. Other exhibitions include 'An Unholy Trinity: Lucian Freud, John Minton and Adrian Ryan' at the Victoria Art Gallery and Falmouth Art Gallery, 'Rubens to Sickert: The Study of Drawing' at the Reading Museum, and 'Crossings: community and refuge' at the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, a British Museum Spotlight Loan. Sophia Weston, trustee of the Garfield Weston Foundation, stated the programme allows smaller museums to show fascinating art and objects to local communities through the lens of regional history and heritage.