Whitechapel Gallery's Triumphant Re-opening
Whitechapel in London's East End is a thriving and busy focus of ethnic diversity. Since the beginning of the 20th century it has also been a hub of artistic and intellectual ferment following the openings of a public art gallery and a public library, founded by philanthropists intent on necessary social reform.

Successive waves of immigrant communities into the area down the centuries have been followed by what is now the largest concentration of artists in Europe. The local economy has also dramatically changed offering employment in banking and financial services rather than small trades and manufacturing.

After several years of closure for major works, the former art gallery and library have been linked to create The Whitechapel Gallery. The distinctive and individual facades have been cleaned and refurbished, and the equally individual interiors delicately renovated, refitted and conserved to provide new as well as improved exhibition spaces, plus permanent rooms for education, archival research and creative studios. To these have been added an elegant dining room overlooking the street and a spacious bookshop.

The opening exhibitions reflect the Whitechapel's unique heritage as a local community resource and an international paradigm. They include a major retrospective of the work of the influential German sculptor Isa Genzken (until 21 June); a display devoted to 'The Whitechapel Boys' a radical group of early 20th century Jewish artists and writers which included David Bomberg and Isaac Rosenberg (until 20 September); films by the Austrian-born artist Ursula Mayer (until 21 June); and 'Passport: Great Early Buys' from the British Council's important collection of 20th century art (until 14 June).

The London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga is the recipient of the first Bloomberg Commission with the dramatic display of Picasso's Guernica in the form of the tapestry from the United Nations Building in New York (until 18 April 2010). Permanent commissions include Liam Gillick's jokey mural in the Cafe/Bar, with a Tete a Tete chair by Annie Ratti outside its doors, and a delightfully witty weathervane by Rodney Graham high up on the Gallery's roof. All of which proves that your don't need to be solemn to be serious. And, not least, entrance is free and access easier.
Whitechapel Gallery, 77 - 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Tel. +44 (0)20 7522 7888. (Open Tues - Sun; late Thurs).

Remembering Walter Hussey - Great Patron of Art
In 1975, the eminent art historian Kenneth Clark described his friend Walter Hussey as "the last great patron of art in the Church of England." Then Dean of Chichester Cathedral, the Rev. Walter Hussey (1909 - 1985) was previously Vicar of St Matthew's Church in Northampton where he succeeded his father in 1937, aged only 28.

Beyond a sensitive personality, considerable determination and an already keen interest in the arts, little in his background would have prepared anyone for what Walter Hussey was to accomplish at his splendid late Victorian parish church.

In 1943, at the height of the Second World War St Matthew's celebrated its 50th anniversary. Having seen and admired Henry Moore's Shelter Drawings, Mr Hussey approached the then relatively little-known sculptor with a proposal for a Madonna and Child to stand in one transept of the church. For the same celebrations Mr Hussey contacted a young composer whose work also he had heard and liked, Benjamin Britten, which resulted in his cantata Rejoice in the Lamb. Four years later in 1947, Graham Sutherland painted a Crucifixion for the opposite transept.

With these and a raft of other successes under his cassock, Walter Hussey was enticed away from St Matthew's by Bishop Bell in 1955 to become Dean of Chichester. By the time of his retirement in 1977 Dean Hussey had transformed the interior of the Cathedral by reinstating, restoring and redisplaying ancient architectural and sculptural features. To these he added, amongst other fine works of modern art and craft, a tapestry by John Piper, a painting by Graham Sutherland, and a window by Marc Chagall inspired by Psalm 150. Furthermore, Walter Hussey commissioned several composers including William Albright and from Leonard Bernstein The Chichester Psalms.

Although only of modest means, Walter Hussey was a considerable collector in his own right. His collection included old master prints and drawings and studio pottery as well as sculpture and paintings by 20th century British masters. Following his retirement Hussey offered his collection to Chichester on condition that the city restore the Queen Anne Pallant House as a public gallery. Now become one of the most significant in the land, there is a special display at the Pallant House Gallery commemorating the centenary of Walter Hussey's birth.

Chichester Cathedral itself has gone one step further in launching a Hussey Memorial Commission - a delicate as well as courageous idea. The Chapter proposes a "major new artwork representing the resurrected Christ." This will hang in a prominent position at the end of the nave above the magnificent 15th century stone Arundel Screen - which Hussey himself reinstated as a memorial to Bishop Bell in 1961. The artist for this exciting new commission will be chosen through an invited competition; the shortlisted proposals will be exhibited in the Cathedral this summer.

We'd be Much Worse off Without Sponsors...
For some reason, the public tends to sceptical and the media cynical about sponsors. Odd really because without them our public museums and galleries would be much less cheerful places. Take Tate Britain for example. This like all the others has, for the best of reasons, more works of art in its reserve collection than it can possibly show; yet regular visitors will be aware that its historic and contemporary British art galleries are quietly changed down the years. How come? Because of the enlightened sponsorship of BP since, can you believe it, 1990...

This year's BP British Art Displays at Tate Britain for example include a recreation of William Blake's 1809 Exhibition. Generally reviled and misunderstood in his life time (1757 - 1827) this was Blake's first and only attempt to show a number of his works in watercolour and tempera, 16 in all, to the public. Held above his brother's shop in London's Soho it was a failure. This small loan exhibition in Room 8 (until 4 October) at Tate Britain includes one little known masterpiece Blake's depiction of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as well as, touchingly, blank wall panels indicating lost works. Also on show are several oil and watercolour paintings by some of Blake's peers which serve to emphasize Blakes originality.

William Blake's characteristically polemical as well as explanatory Descriptive Catalogue for his exhibition was entirely written by him and is now very rare. It has been elegantly republished and economically priced with colour illustrations by Tate Publishing as Seen in My Visions. It is essential reading for anyone interested in this very great indeed unique English artist.

After digesting all this and if you have any puff left, find your way to the Turner Galleries where (until 4 October) you'll have your aesthetic sensibilities blown away by Turner/Rothko. Here Tate's famous Rothko Room (filled in this instance with six of his Seagram murals) is at the heart of a display of some of Turner's most enigmatic late paintings, seascapes and interiors. These have been selected from those shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1966 - which Rothko visited, remarking, "This man Turner, he learnt a lot from me."

As for sponsors, few were as great as Sir Henry Tate, the eponymous benefactor of this great public art gallery. The 190th anniversary of his birth is marked by the display (in Room 15) of a painting by his friend the great Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896). Dew-Drenched Furze, from 1890, is a large and elegiac masterpiece painted in Scotland of a subject the artist himself thought unpaintable. The picture has been generously donated to the nation by one of the artist's great grandsons Geoffroy Millais, whose late father's determination to purchase the picture made this gift possible.
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. Tel. +44 (0)20 7887 8888. (Open daily).

New Gallery for Buddhist Sculpture
Thanks to the munificence of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, the first gallery in the UK devoted exclusively to Buddhist sculpture has just opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Some 50 sculptures are on show dating from the 2nd century AD to the middle of the 19th century in many materials, including marble, gilded copper, teak, bronze, stone and stucco, and in as many sizes whether for personal devotion or temple worship.

This new display of highlights from the V&A's collection also suggests the spread of Buddhism from its origins in northern India across Asia, and the variety of ways in which individual cultures have expressed their visual artistry and practices.

All of this is in harmony with the Ho Family Foundation's conviction that Buddhist philosophy "can be an important path for personal and societal transformation." Deeply rooted in Chinese culture, the Foundation aims both to support it as well as to foster "cross-cultural understanding between China and the world." The new gallery at the V&A is a quiet expression of this attractive ideal.
Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Tel. +44 (0)20 7942 2000. (Open daily; late Wed).

Damien Hirst at the Wallace Collection
Even the most long-serving of admirers of Dame Rosalind Savill, Director London's Wallace Collection, might be forgiven a momentary blink of excitement on receiving the news that this great, indeed unique museum with its famously 'closed' collection, will play host later this year to an exhibition of new paintings by Damien Hirst. Too venerable now (he is nigh on 45 years old) to be considered an enfant terrible, Hirst still manages in his maturity to surprise and sometimes overwhelm with his best work.

The exhibition will comprise 25 of Hirst's Blue Paintings, seen for the first time in the UK and painted between 2006 and 2008. The artist says that he loves the fact that the Wallace "is a family collection - like a world away from the world." His chosen venue is a world away too from the bare walls of contemporary art spaces, for his pictures will be hung in the upper galleries, furnished with old master paintings and equivalent works of decorative art. If his pictures are indeed as good as they can be, then Hirst's claim that his new paintings "somehow feel like they belong here with others works and objects from other times" is certain to be fulfilled.
The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN. Tel. +44 (0)20 7563 9500. (Open daily) 14 October 2009 - 24 January 2010.

Art Fund Stunner...
At the end of May, David Barrie stepped down as Director and Trustee of The Art Fund. For a relatively youthful man, his decision must have been just about the last thing expected by Art Fund members, colleagues and beneficiaries or even, one suspects, by those he has lobbied so successfully over the past decade and a half.

"I believe that art has the power to transform people's lives," states David Barrie, "and that enabling as many people as possible to experience the greatest art at first hand is a cause worth fighting for." In this context, not the least if probably the most lengthy of the campaigns he led was that to secure free admission to the UK's major museums and galleries, concluded successfully in 2001.

Since his appointment as Director in 1992, the Art Fund has given close on £55 million to help secure more than 400,000 works for 447 public collections throughout the UK. Most recently, David Barrie has been crucially involved in the efforts to secure the untouched mid 18th century Adam Brothers' masterpiece Dumfries House with its contents for the nation in 2007; and in the acquisition of Anthony d'Offay's Artist Rooms collection of post-war and contemporary art for the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate in 2008.

In all, this a remarkable legacy for one man, with many years of active life ahead of him, wise and shrewd enough also to take a break from incessant and hectic occupation. Nowadays also The Art Fund proudly and justifiably proclaims itself: "the UK's leading independent art charity."
The Art Fund, 7 Cromwell Place, London SW7 2JN. Tel. +44 (0)20 7225 4800.