National Gallery Revamp - May 2025

Published: 12/06/2025

This photo shows the new entrance through the Sainsbury wing on the left of the main building. Through automatic sliding doors you enter into a large, light, open piazza type forum where there is a comfortable seating area, a smart cafe and cloakrooms.  To the right are the wide and wonderful stairs (lifts too) that take you up into the glorious rooms where you find the collection, rehung to make understanding and accessibility easier.

The rooms are arranged either by era, beginning with the earliest or by the artist(s). Imagine being in a room surrounded by Titians or the blues of Renoir, Berthe Morisot and Degas. The Exhibition space is now very firmly on the ground floor…Siena at the moment.

Space allows me to mention only a couple of the many things that caught my attention. In the room dedicated to Myra Hess who gave concerts there during WW2 are four large pictures facing each other, two by Claude Lorrain and two by Turner, the former having influenced the latter. Turner left them to the National Gallery so they could hang near the Lorrain.

Then in the 17th century room, I noticed a picture by Salvador Rosa called ‘Philosophy’. The philosopher pictured, probably the artist, is holding a stone tablet which says in Latin, ‘Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence.’

Your favourite pictures and artists, the most well-known are there but I felt more able to see and find other masterpieces that I had overlooked on previous visits.

For more information on revamp

Link to National Gallery