National Gallery to Show Works Acquired Through Tax Schemes

The National Gallery in London will open "Collected" on 22 May 2027, an exhibition of around forty works that entered UK public collections through two tax-based programmes, Acceptance in Lieu and Cultural Gifts. A press view is scheduled for 19 May, and the London run closes on 5 September 2027. ^[1][2]

Arts Council England administers the programmes for the UK government, and after London the show will visit Edinburgh's National Galleries of Scotland, Belfast's Ulster Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru in Cardiff. The objects span a medieval cup through to a painting completed near the end of the 1980s, and the Gallery notes that they are only a portion of what the programmes have brought into public ownership. ^[1][2]

Among the highlighted works, Tate lends Pablo Picasso's The Weeping Woman (1937), which it received in 1987 after the government accepted it instead of tax. Lakeland Arts lends Lucian Freud's Portrait of Hermione Scott (1960), and René Magritte's La condition humaine (1935) is included. Leicester Museum and Art Gallery lends two Picasso ceramics: the decorative plate Bird on a Nest, dated 1949, and the 1948 work Flower Women/Standing Nudes. Peter Doig's At the Edge of Town (painted 1986 to 1988) is the most recent piece; it entered Edinburgh's collection in 2021 after being accepted instead of inheritance tax. ^[2]

Also on view are Guercino's The Samian Sibyl with a Putto (1651), an Old Man in an Armchair (1650) attributed to Rembrandt, Paul Cézanne's Avenue at Chantilly (1888), and a Chinese porcelain jardiniere. ^[1]

Daniel Sobrino Ralston, the Gallery's CEEH Associate Curator of Spanish Paintings, is curator. He described the exhibition as pioneering in spanning medieval to modern art and marking what the schemes have brought into public ownership. Director Sir Gabriele Finaldi said it is "impossible to overestimate the importance of the Acceptance in Lieu and Cultural Gift Scheme in bringing astounding works of art into public ownership in museums across the UK." ^[1]

Acceptance in Lieu lets a person settle an inheritance tax bill by handing over objects judged pre-eminent in cultural, scientific or historic terms. The person can receive a larger share of the object's value than a sale would bring, and objects accepted under it usually must be publicly displayed for at least 100 days each year. A second programme, the Cultural Gifts Scheme, has since March 2013 allowed living donors to give pre-eminent objects and get a reduction in corporation, income or capital gains tax. ^[1][2]

Eight paintings will tour to all four venues as a core group, including Corot's Italian Woman (about 1870), Cézanne's Avenue at Chantilly (1888), John Singer Sargent's Wineglasses (probably 1875) and Jacob van Ruisdael's The Cornfield. ^[2]

Edinburgh's presentation is due to open on 24 June 2028 at the National, Modern and Portrait sites. It will add around a dozen major loans, from an ancient Roman sculpture of a cat and a late Rembrandt portrait to Damien Hirst's Wretched War (2004). ^[2]

In Belfast, the Ulster Museum will host the show from 26 October 2028 until 28 January 2029, focusing on the core group and adding items from Lanto Synge's needlework collection, which came through the Cultural Gifts Scheme. According to Hannah Crowdy, National Museums NI's head of curatorial, without Acceptance in Lieu the museum could not have offered local audiences works by Renoir and Tissot at home. ^[2]

In spring 2029, Amgueddfa Cymru will present pieces by Monet, Rembrandt, Thomas Jones, Frank Auerbach, Ceri Richards and Giorgio Morandi. Ceri Jones, head of art, noted Morandi's Still Life with Bottles as the most recent acquisition of this kind. ^[2]

The announcement coincides with Arts Council England's annual report for April 2024 to March 2025, in which the two schemes had their most productive year since 2020, transferring £59.7 million of objects. Among the allocations were a standing desk formerly used by Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli, now at Hughenden Manor; Degas's pastel Danseuses roses (1897 to 1901), which went to the National Gallery; and Lord Howe's political archive at the Bodleian Library. ^[2]