If Kirklees Council decides to sell off some of its £29.5m art collection, it will not be the first local authority to raise funds this way.
In recent years several English councils have disposed of artworks – from multi-million-pound collections of Chinese pottery and a £1.25m L. S. Lowry to paintings worth just a few thousand.
There are those who say that in times of austerity councils should use their assets, and selling off rarely seen or extremely valuable works makes perfect sense.
This week, Clr David Hall, deputy leader of Kirklees Conservatives, called for the sale of 2% of the council’s art collection in order to raise £600,000.
He said it was ‘bizarre’ that the council owned valuable works, including those by big names such as L. S. Lowry, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and John Martin, that were tucked away in vaults because they were too expensive to insure for public viewing. (In fact, the Bacon work is about to be returned to display in Huddersfield Art Gallery after a worldwide tour while the others are on show.)
But the counter-argument is that art collections are the ‘family silver’ of local authorities and once disposed of can never be recovered. What’s more, as government rules stand at the moment, cash raised from such sales must be ploughed back into cultural services. When Bury Council sold its Lowry to fund threatened frontline services back in 2006, it lost accreditation from the Arts Council England, which affected the authority’s ability to seek cultural grants and funding.
Then there’s the ethical issue of parting with publicly owned works of art. As Professor Steve Swindells from the University of Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and Architecture points out: “Public collections should be public.
“When works of art get sold, they tend to end up in private collections and disappear from the public domain.
“It’s all very well to look at the monetary value of art, but we need to think about what it means to the identity of a town and its cultural heritage.”
But does the average member of the public value art, or would they rather see money spent on vital services?
Last year, visitor numbers to Kirklees museums and art galleries fell quite dramatically – from 317,000 in 2011/12 to 223,000 – although this was partly attributed to the fact that cost-cutting led to a 27% reduction in opening hours.
Controversially, it could be argued that art galleries are becoming an expensive luxury.
A public vote conducted by the Examiner this week found that 53% of respondents were in favour of selling council-owned art.
However, the Examiner’s arts writer Val Javin believes that the sale of public art is “short-termism” and arises from a “total misunderstanding of culture being something high-brow and not for everybody”.
She added: “People underestimate what art can do, in so many ways, and how important it is to society.”
How people perceive art and how it affects them is the subject of new research at the University of Huddersfield. Prof Swindells, who is the co-author of a book to be published in April, Cultural Leadership in the Arts and Measuring Public Engagement, says it is already known that people enjoy art they can understand.
“And interpretation is the key to people understanding art,” he added.
When the university stages its ongoing ROTOR exhibitions at Huddersfield Art Gallery – showing the work of staff from the school of art – teams of students act as ambassadors, interpreting their tutors’ work for visitors.
“We have found that most people are positive about engaging with the art when they understand what it is about,” said Prof Swindells.
Someone who works hard to engage the public with art is Brighouse gallery owner Steve Lord, who says selling off publicly owned art is a “slippery slope”.
“It’s like selling the family silver. The community would never have the opportunity to see those pieces again,” he added.
“Art is a great thing for people to get enjoyment out of; to take their minds off everyday worries.
“And you can’t beat seeing the original. You can see the brushstrokes and connect with the artist. There are many pieces of research that show art can lift the spirits. It’s not mundane, it’s special, and part of our heritage.”
However, if Kirklees was allowed to sell its Francis Bacon painting Figure Study II, which was gifted to Batley Corporation in 1952, it could expect a windfall.
Mr Lord, who runs the Harrison Lord Gallery, explained: “Francis Bacon is at the top end of the art market, which is doing very well at the moment. A record price (£89m) has just been paid for a Bacon a couple of months ago. But it’s outrageous that someone would even suggest selling off a work like that.”
Chris Marsden, chairman of Huddersfield Civic Society, said the society had discussed Clr Hall’s proposals at its meeting this week and described them as “barmy”.
He said: “Clr Hall is wrong when he named works that he says are not on display, because they are, and doesn’t seem to understand that it’s important to have more work in your holdings than on display.
“The Tate has only 5% of its collection on show at any one time. I’m sure that Clr Hall has more than one pair of socks.”
Mr Marsden also made the point that selling off publicly owned works would deter future philanthropists from making donations to council collections.
“The town would be poorer in every sense of the word if art is sold off and I don’t see the justification for such action,” he added.
Proposals to sell off public art send a “dreadful message”, says Huddersfield artist John Ross.
“It’s saying that these talismans of our culture are disposable commodities,” he added.
And he likened the suggestion to the threat in the 1970s to Huddersfield’s iconic railway station: “Sentimentalists saved the station fr om being pulled down.
“The art gallery collection is as important as that. You just don’t sell that kind of thing.
“But it comes as no surprise that a councillor from the present party of government thinks it’s right to sell off the art collection.
“They wouldn’t know a Francis Bacon (above) from a pound of streaky bacon.
“Huddersfield is an important town and deserves an important art collection. There is no replacing them once they are gone.”
Mr Ross, one of the founders of The Artworks, an independent art school in Halifax, is outspoken on the Government’s lack of support for the arts in education and believes moves by councils to sell collections are part of a wider issue of undervaluing art. He explained: “Over the years, I have fully witnessed the restorative nature of art, as well as the critical part design plays in regional regeneration. It is ironic that at a time when the creative industries provide twice as many jobs as the finance sector that we see a government cutting back on art and design in the school curriculum.” By 2017, The Treasury predicts that around 50% of new jobs in the UK will come from the creative sector.
