In November, National Museum Wales announced the removal of the portrait of Welsh slave owner Sir Thomas Picton to reinterpret his legacy, adding to a list of British institutions which already stepped up to explore their controversial past.
The painting, that had been exhibited in the Cardiff museum’s Faces of Wales gallery for more than a century, celebrated the once lieutenant-general as the highest-ranking officer to fall in the Battle of Waterloo while defending the British left flank, but forgot his notorious, cruel story as a blood-stained governor of Trinidad, that even prompted the Duke of Wellington to describe him as “a foul-mouthed devil”.
In particular, the case of 14-year-old girl Luisa Calderon, who had been accused of the theft of £500 and sentenced to picketing in 1825, triggered widespread outrage. The punishment, that Picton himself authorised for the young woman, implied that the victim was hung by one wrist and counterbalanced her weight by resting her foot on an inverted peg.
“Pointing out Picton’s barbarity towards Black people means telling a more complete story about our colonial past”, said Professor Alan Lester of University of Sussex, whose expertise also covers Imperialism and the British Empire.
The museum’s prominent choice to readdress the lieutenant’s role pertains to Reframing Picton, a youth-led initiative that involves Amgueddfa Cymru, the Welsh name of the consortium; the collective Bloedd AC, that works alongside 16- to 25-year-olds, and its community partner SSAP.
Earlier on, the group had awarded two commissions to Trinidadian artists Gasiye and Laku Neg to explore new accounts and broaden the insufficient and only partial colonial narrative that the portrait presents.
“Young people brought in the energy of the Black Lives Matter protests and we decided to follow where they led on this project”, said Dr Sarah Younan, coordinator of the collective.
The announcement of the removal further emphasised the need to rethink the ways in which history is conveyed, through research and exhibitions that curators should work on without any pressure. Funding has often stood out as one of the issues undermining their activities.
According to Sky News research conducted in June, a sculpture of Thomas Picton, showed along with other Welsh heroes in a gallery at the Cardiff City Hall and later boxed off, was part of 84 contentious monuments across the U.K. celebrating people tarnished with slavery and colonialism, that had drawn the attention of protesters in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
Among these, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston that last year was thrown into Bristol Harbour during an anti-racism protest, that PM Boris Johnson described as a “great lie” that photoshops the entire cultural landscape, and re-exhibited at the M Shed Museum in June 2021.
Protest leaders, later renamed as the Colston Four, were all acquitted on charges of criminal damage last week.
“The story that is currently told in most of our heritage sector is essentially the propaganda that justified White Britain's conquest, denial of sovereignty and exploitation of people of colour around the Empire since the 19th century”, said Professor Lester. “Black people were rendered British subjects by the Empire and their perspectives on its legacies should be included too”, he said.
As stated in the Empowering Collections report, published by Museums Association in 2019, the demand for both a decolonisation and a democratisation of art foundations is steadily growing. Key recommendations include new, thorough and collaborative research to address the content and terminology of current representations of colonial history and improvements in training and funding for the rationalisation of museum collections.
In the wake of the global acclaim of Black Lives Matter, the social movement that has highlighted and protested against all racially motivated violence since 2013 and that made international headlines in 2020, Critical Race Theory emerged as an alternative epistemological modus operandi.
“The intersectional approach of CRT is hugely relevant in understanding the multiple discriminations that an individual faces on a daily basis”, said Eleanor Stephenson of University of Cambridge, who is completing her PhD on slavery and Britain’s imperial enterprise.
Critical Race Theory, the multidisciplinary academic concept introduced in the 1960s and inspired by the thinking of intellectuals such as Antonio Gramsci and W. E. B. Du Bois, deems race as a social construct, naturally interconnected to other social factors of disadvantage, and favours the illuminating narrative of lived experiences to a liberal, nonspecific color-blindness.
“It creates a space that is more neutral and that reflects the identities of more people”, said Stephenson.
In September 2020, the National Trust produced an exhaustive report in this regard, so as to try and give voice to what remained untold. It shed light on the Trust properties’ ties to the slave economy and colonialism, whose profits have likely allowed to buy and furnish them.
The document, for which the NT’s director general Hilary McGrady reportedly received death threats, sparked wrath from 59 conservative MPs and seven peers of the Common Sense Group.
In a letter to The Telegraph, they denounced the move as part of a Marxist, “woke” agenda and suggested their funding applications to be reviewed.
“Curators have a really tough time. They obviously are the ones pushing the progress of a museum, but simultaneously, they respond to the requests of trustees, donors and the indifference of government”, said Stephenson, who also owns and curates an art gallery in London.
If funding is an issue, independence might be the solution, but not without consequences.
“Independent spaces would be interesting, but then you’d have a huge problem with paid exhibitions, because it excludes a huge amount of people”, said Stephenson.
“It would not change my mind at all”, Miguel F. said, while lining for a paid exhibition at the National Gallery. “It would rather discourage those who are less interested from visiting”.
“I see the importance of financially contributing to arts and culture, but I could not afford to go that often”, said shortly after Federica S., an international undergraduate student.
“I would practically stop visiting, since I don’t have much money to spend on leisure”, said Robert T., a man in his 30s who has always conceived museums as free-admission spaces.
According to the outcome of research on the impact of charging for admissions, co-funded by Arts Council England and Welsh Government in 2016, the museum’s audience would be reduced but not affected in its diversity.
“The answer could exist looking outside traditional organisations”, said Marie Smith, an artist who collaborates with Race Equality Foundation.
“Commercial spaces are often dictated by the market and run by those with the means of production”, said Dr John Wright of University of Leeds, whose expertise focuses on the ecology of cultural spaces. “Whereas, artist-led spaces tend not to have permanent collections and, as a result, can change relatively quickly”, he said.
“However, funding schemes such as ACE’s Grantium actually exclude many artists and curators and do not support long term practice”, said Dr Wright.
Museums and all trustees, donors and funds that stake their activities need revamping, so that a story of exploitation, bigotry and discrimination can be accounted in full, for what it really was. Art is a product of history, and as long as this unjust system, which can still be found outside galleries’ halls, does not change, the inside will definitely struggle to do the same.