A Spectator's Notebook

On leaving the RAF after the war I joined my family firm which sells pictures in St James's Street. One of my first memories there was meeting Lord Ilchester and Sir Henry Hake, Who were then respectively Chairman of the Trustees and Director of the National Portrait Gallery. Both were formidable figures. In reminding me of my family's association with the National Portrait Gallery as honorary advisers for two generations, they expressed the ,hope that I would continue this tradition. I was proud to do so.

When, twenty-four years later, in October 1970, the then Minister responsible for the Arts, Lord Eccles, insouciantly launched a plan to Charge the public for admission to the gallery Which I had served for so long, I was profoundly shocked; particularly because the Minister took this step without the slightest consulation with the Board of Trustees or curatorial staff.

On careful analysis of the government's Policy to charge for admitting the public to all our national institutions, it became clear to me that this proposal would not only yield a paltry revenue but also was tinged with Treasury greed. It also came to light that the government was prepared to rewrite the will of a benefactor to the National Gallery of Scotland who specifically stipulated that his collection of watercolour drawings by Turner which he left to Edinburgh should be seen free of charge. Further a statutory instrument was laid before Parliament whereby other legal documents sPecifying free access to other works of art in Scotland were to be set aside. Nevertheless it took over three years to kill admission charges. In retrospect it seems to me that the reason for se prolonged a battle was that the responsible authorities either did not realise that matters of Principle were involved or, if they did, were not Prepared to act decisively upon them.

The philistine tax

Unable to leave ill alone, the government simultaneously dealt a further blow at the arts through Value Added Tax. In so far as it is levied on merchandise, the tax is by definition concerned with consumer goods intended for a final purchaser in the home market. What the P9vvers4hat-were obstinately failed to recognise was that works of art ought not to' be

caPed together with household appliances and bottles of gin; with only a few exceptions all were to be subject to VAT.

Eventually the government realised that it Would scarcely be in the national economic Interest for London to lose its commanding Position as world centre of the art and antique trade. But the concession was given grudgingly and for the wrong reasons. Some Treasury minister or mandarin seems to have realised that second-hand cars, although eventually consumed, did indeed pass from hand to hand for a certain period and therefore should not be each time on their full value. And so, on the backs (as it were) of a cavalcade of ,l'roken-down crocks, equal provision was made tc'r other second-hand goods commanding Stronger titles to civilised respect. Th: is was achieved, after much shuffling, by he

imposition in most cases of a 10 per cent tax

the profit margins of art auctioneers and uealers; it replaced the original 10 per cent tax " the total selling price of the work of art c°11cerned. Under this scheme the fine art and

antique trade did indeed secure substantial relief from the full rigours of VAT. But, the justifiable pleas of living painters and sculptors, whose works ought unquestionably to have been zero-rated, were repeatedly and shamefully rejected by both Conservative and Labour administrations despite the pleas of individual members of Parliament on both sides of the house. The same philistine touch was applied to the works of creative writers and musicians; and theatre and concert tickets, so recently relieved from entertainment tax, were subjected to its resuscitation under the pretext of VAT.

Last: but not least VAT was imposed on the acquisition of works of art by all our public museums. But as this tax is not payable by foreign buyers a dealer has a fiscal incentive to sell our national heritage abroad.

And now the spurious reasoning which lay behind the policies of charging for admission to museums and of imposing VAT on the arts has emerged once again in support of a wealth tax, which clearly constitutes the most damaging blow ever sustained by our culture in pouring out its very essence on the altar of a phoney equality. All this appears to me to be sadly symptomatic of a growing contempt for spiritual values which bids fair to become ingrained and which a civilisation can ignore only at its peril.

Give it back

By contrast let me draw attention to a shining deed in a dark world. Shortly after the turn of the century a small boy overheard his father and a brother officer, both keen military historians, discussing the need for a National Army Museum. With the years the idea grew in his mind; but he had to wait until he had ceased to be Chief of the Imperial General Staff before he was free to launch his ambitious project fora National Army Museum. Its purpose, he be lieved, was to commemorate our miltary past and to perpetuate its inspiring lesson for the benefit of future generations.

The visonary schoolboy is today Field-Marshal Sir Gerald Templer. Although the debt we owe to him and his appeal committee is profound. it is still not sufficiently appreciate(' Without his dedicated vigour it would have been impossible to raise well over £1.3 million for the museum, not only from friends in all walks of life but from industry, commerce, trusts and the general public. It remains nothing short of a National disgrace that the Treasury in releasing land for the site in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, insisted on exacting the last penny. Treasury exactions consisted of £160,000 for the actual site plus £3,538, 14s 9d for expenses. The paid cheque tor the total of £163,538 14s 9d made out to the Treasury Solicitor on November 30, 1967, has been preserved by the Field -Marshal as a melancholy memento. Redress could yet be made. The Field-Marshal is still engaged in trying to raise a further £200,000 to help pay for the building of the last phase of the museum. How fitting it would be if Parliament were to recognise Sir Gerald Templer's remarkable achievements, by voting the restitution of the money given by donors to the museum nearly seven years ago. Such a gesture would be worthy of his services both to the fabric of the museum and to the enrichment or its contents.

Artist of promise

Exceptional individuals have always been prepared to battle against established conventions sometimes of dubious worth. But there have also been happy occasions when a conventional figure has seen just a little further than might be expected of him. One such was Benjamin West, the somewhat pedestrian successor to Sir Joshua Reynolds as president of the Royal Academy.

In the year 1801, a young artist, dismayed by the Exhibition Committee's rejection of his landscape in oils, was told by West, "Don't be disheartened, young man, we shall hear of you again. You must have loved nature very much before you could have painted this. Always remember, sir, that light and shadow never stand still." These prophetic words were never forgotten by John Constable. The rejected picture was Tlatford Mill.' The truth of Benjamin West's avuncular advice is nowhere demonstrated so abundantly as in the superb Constable collection displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, much of which we owe to the exceptional generosity of his own family. It was to many of us intolerable that earlier this year we should, for a short time, have been required to pay to see the collection. Once again, we can enjoy them freely, as I am certain Constable himself would have wished.

Instant inflation

Art dealers have not always lived under fiscal oppression. I recall a story told to me when I first entered the trade. A colleague of my grandfather's was asked by an immensely rich tycoon to find a portrait of a certain historical figure for his collection. After years of search, the dealer eventually tracked down just such a picture in a private collection and bought it on the spot. Highly satisfied with his coup, he made an appointment with his client and arrived punctually with the picture in a cab. But instead of being welcomed with open arms he was made to stand in a chilly hall for four expensive minutes. The portrait cost the tycoon precisely £4,000 more than the dealer had originally intended to ask — £1,000 for each long minute he was kept waiting.

Hugh Leggatt