Saved for the nation.(Report from Europe/National Art Collections Fund, United Kingdom)

About half a million works of art have been saved for the United Kingdom by the National Art Collections Fund, now known as the Art Fund, since its inception a century ago. Its four founders were alarmed at the rate at which works of art from historic private collections were being exported, primarily to the United States. The founders, who included the critic Roger Fly, started a membership organization with a modest annual subscription of one guinea (the equivalent of 1.05 [pounds sterling] today). At the first annual general meeting, in November 1903, there were three hundred members and a balance of 700 [pounds sterling] in the fund. There are now ninety thousand members, and annual expenditures of about 5.5 million [pounds sterling].

Although the Art Fund was responsible for orchestrating the rescue and placement of such famous old master paintings as The Toilet of Venus (also known as the Rokeby Venus) by Diego Velazquez acquired by the National Gallery in 1906 for 45,000 [pounds sterling] and illustrated at the left, it is important to realize that the fund always had a commitment to contemporary art. In 1905 it Facilitated the purchase for 2,000 [pounds sterling] of Nocturne in Blue and Silver: Old ...