Our daily round-up of news from the art world
National Portrait Gallery awarded £9.4 million for major development project | A major development programme, described by Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, as ‘the biggest transformation the gallery has ever undertaken’, has received £9.4 million in funding from the National Lottery, it was announced this morning. The project, which is expected to cost £35.5 million, will create 20 per cent more space for public use through the restoration of the gallery’s currently closed East Wing and the construction of a new learning centre. Fundraising efforts continue, with the gallery hoping to reach its target within two years and complete the project by 2022.
Getty returns ancient marble sculpture to Italy | The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has voluntarily returned an ancient marble statuette to the Italian government. The Statue of Zeus Enthroned, which dates to around 100 BC, was purchased by the Getty in 1992, but a fragment from the work was recently discovered in Italy, after which the decision was made to begin the repatriation process. The ancient sculpture was returned today at the Getty Center, whose director Timothy Potts said that the ‘Getty values greatly its relationships with Italian colleagues in museums and other cultural sectors’.
Noguchi Museum director Jenny Dixon to retire | Jenny Dixon, director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in New York, has announced that she will be stepping down at the end of 2017, after 14 years in the role. The museum, which was founded by Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi to show his own work, opened to the public on a seasonal basis in 1985. It was Dixon who oversaw a renovation project in 2004 that allowed the building to stay open all year round as a public museum.