UK Edition
National Gallery to celebrate how it hid priceless paintings from Nazis in a Welsh mine
The National Gallery is to celebrate the “remarkable chapter in its history” which saw its priceless paintings hidden from the Nazis in a Welsh mine.
A new exhibition will show 24 archive photographs detailing how paintings were removed, packed, transported and stashed in a disused slate mine in Snowdonia, along with picture of how it looks today.
A new 30 minute film about the rescue mission, capturing an “immersive” dance and spoken word performance, has been commissioned to accompany it, to be broadcast on BBC Two.
The gallery’s display will recall the summer of 1940 when, following Dunkirk, the British feared invasion.
Experts feared for the safety of the national art collection, with proposals for its safekeeping little better: Winston Churchill is known to have personally intervened to veto a plan to take them to Canada by ship, fearing a u-boat attack could leave paintings lost at sea.
Instead, curators agreed to hide works in the Manod mine, enlarging its entrance with explosives and building small brick “bungalows” inside to protect them from damp.
Monitoring the conditions the paintings were kept in further led to “valuable discoveries” about how best to protect them, a spokesman for the gallery said, explaining air conditioning was then added to the renovated London gallery after the war.
Dr Minna Moore Ede, National Gallery curator, said: “Hundreds of feet underground, the Manod slate mine is an extraordinary subterranean space in north Wales. Robin Friend’s photographs convey the wonder of this secret and labyrinthine world, where for four years during the Second World War, the National Gallery hid their collection for safe-keeping.
“Underground spaces have often been a repository for our most precious objects; as the BBC launches its new ‘Civilisations’ series, this is an opportunity to reflect on this idea of preserving the past for future generations.”
The Nation’s Treasure Caves is part of the Civilisations Festival, a partnership between arts organisations, archives and the BBC to coincide with the new series of Civilisations.
Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery during World War II, was the presenter of the original 1969 BBC television show.
The display will be open to the public from March 6. The television show, Winged Bull in the Elephant Case, will premiere on BBC Twoat 10pm on Saturday, March 3.