Portal:Museums

The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, in Trafalgar Square since 1838, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.

The National Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge.

Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase, the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds of the collection. The collection is smaller than many European national galleries, but encyclopaedic in scope; most major developments in Western painting "from Giotto to Cézanne" are represented with important works. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, but this is no longer the case.

The present building, the third site to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins. Building took from 1832 to 1838, when it opened. Only the facade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, a 1991 extension to the west by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is a significant example of Postmodernist architecture in Britain. (Full article...)

Volunteers sort and catalog a library collection at the National Library of Cambodia. Creating documentation of collections and providing safe storage conditions are important aspects of collections management.

Collections management involves the development, storage, and preservation of cultural property, as well as objects of contemporary culture (including contemporary art, literature, technology, and documents) in museums, libraries, archives and private collections. The primary goal of collections management is to meet the needs of the individual collector or collecting institution's mission statement , while also ensuring the long-term safety and sustainability of the cultural objects within the collector's care. Collections management, which consists primarily of the administrative responsibilities associated with collection development, is closely related to collections care, which is the physical preservation of cultural heritage. The professionals most influenced by collections management include collection managers, registrars, and archivists. (Full article...)

• ... that for fifteen years Joseph Henry Gest was both the director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the president of the Rookwood Pottery Company, spending mornings at one and afternoons at the other?
• ... that the Republican Palace Museum in Khartoum was originally a cathedral?
• ... that art collector Michael Xufu Huang bought a portrait of Anna Sorokin, who had defrauded him years earlier, to be displayed in his museum?
• ... that Ukrainian museum director Horpyna Vatchenko forced the Hermitage Museum to abide by its agreement and return the Kernosovskiy idol after a loan?
• ... that the Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell operated as a residence, a house of correction, a factory, and finally a museum?
• ... that in 1999 two necklaces were repatriated to the Cook Islands National Museum from a museum in Angus, Scotland?

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

The National Computer & Communications Museum

A computer museum is devoted to the study of historic computer hardware and software, where a "museum" is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment", as defined by the International Council of Museums.

Some computer museums exist within larger institutions, such as the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom; and the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany. Others are dedicated specifically to computing, such as:

• the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, United States.
• the American Computer & Robotics Museum in Bozeman, Montana, United States.
• The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, United Kingdom.
• The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, United Kingdom
• the Nexon Computer Museum in Jeju Province. South Korea. (Full article...)

16 September 2023 –

A major fire at the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta causes extensive damage, including the collapse of roof and outer wall. An unknown number of pre-colonial artifacts are damaged or destroyed. (The Diplomat)

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