Back to university and the art thefts

The struggles of rising in the morning came home today. I missed my first two lectures but dragged myself out for the last three. In four weeks I have exams and before then I have two essays to research, start and finish; this could prove challenging.

The Picasso, van Gogh and Gauguin which were stolen from the Whitworth, next door to where I live, have been recovered outside a public toilet in town today. It is quite a funny story, but news stories have suggested that the paintings, which have been reported to be worth between £1m and £4m collectively, may have suffered bad rain damage. The Whitworth Gallery is, of course, owned by the University of Manchester. I never realised they had such valuable works in there; if I had, the poor security there might have been more striking. basically, there is one six-foot high, easily scalable fence all the way round the gallery. There are hundreds of windows around the back of the building, and the back in so dark and secluded that no-one would be seen or caught breaking in there. Neither did I realise the sheer volume of the collection at the Whitworth: 40,000 works, of which 36,000 are at any one time in storage. If the place burnt down, heaven knows how much money would go with it.

I like the gallery's exhibitions, of which the most recent has been a collection of Lee Miller's photographs. However, their permanent collection is decidedly weak. Assuming that they have at least some of their best works on display all the time, the paintings in storage must be very obscure. I can remember visiting the gallery on a school art trip a few years ago, and everyone commented then how weak the collection was. Their previous exhibition, of Ben Nicholson's work, would have been interesting but unfortunately I missed it by a day. I first came across Nicholson at Tate St Ives, where his links with Alfred Wallis, the elderly fisherman who took up painting very late in life, are explored greatly.

Tags: university, manchester, whitworth, gallery, art, vangogh, gauguin, picasso, theft