Victoria and Albert Museum

Arts Council of Great Britain: records, 1928-1997

Series description

Context

A major function of the Arts Council'sVisual Art Department was the mounting of exhibitions in London and the organisation of touring exhibitions for the rest of the country.

The Hayward Gallery opened on the South Bank in London in 1968 and was initially operated and maintained by the Arts Council. The Council's major exhibitions were then for the most part concentrated there. In 1970 the Arts Council also opened the Serpentine Gallery with the aim of exhibiting the contemporary art work of younger, less well known artists. Exhibition proposals were considered at the quarterly meetings of the Exhibition Sub-Committee of the Advisory Panel on Art.

During the 1980s a greater part of the Arts Council's grant-in-aid on art was put towards developing a programme with municipal art galleries. Regional touring exhibitions and the exhibition programme at the Hayward Gallery now became the responsibility of the South Bank Board, which was established as an independent limited company in 1988.

The files relating to the art exhibition section of the Arts Council were stored with the Hayward Gallery rather than with the Arts Council. In order to reflect the separate custodial history of these records and in the interests of original order, they have not been re-intergtrated into the Arts Development Division sub-group. Instead they have formed the independent "Hayward Gallery" sub-group of the Archive.

Scope and content

The records in this series reflect the administrative history of the Hayward Gallery and its relations with the Arts Council. Alongside general policy and information files are the minutes of the Exhibition Sub-Committee from the late 1960s. There are also exhibition schemes and attendance figures and papers concerning exhibition proposals and rejections.

Records relating to specific exhibitions can be found in series ACGB/121. For records relating to the Arts Council Collection see series ACGB/124.

Arrangement

The records in this series are arranged chronologically.

Access

Restrictions on access

Access to unpublished material less than 30 years old is subject to the written permission of the Arts Council of England. Apply in the first instance to the Archive of Art and Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum.