Author: Virginia Button

Dr Virginia Button is a Cornwall-based writer, curator, academic consultant and art historian with expertise in modern and contemporary British art. Championing art and artists through teaching, museum curating and leadership in higher education, her books include The Turner Prize, St Ives Artists: A Companion for Tate St Ives, Christopher Wood, Ben Nicholson and Lucian Freud. Her book on Wilhelmina Barns-Graham will be published later this year.

Cuts to arts courses: strategic missteps and myopia

Virginia Button
protest placard "Save the Arts"

Towards the end of my first year as an undergraduate in 1979 I desperately wanted to switch to my subsidiary subject, art history. I had no idea that this even existed as a degree course when I applied to university, but it proved to be a mind-blowing, intellectually rigorous course of study that ignited a […]

Culture wars, censorship and the ghost of William Blake

Virginia Button

Earlier this month, the first round of the government’s Culture Recovery Fund was announced by Arts Council England, with a welcome £257m allocated to 1,385 theatres, museums, orchestras, dance companies, music venues and other arts organisations impacted by Covid-19. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced: “This funding is a vital boost for the theatres, music venues, […]

Museums and galleries respond to the climate crisis

Virginia Button

The US west coast is on fire, the hurricane season is off to an early start and in the UK a year of unseasonal weather has resulted in the worst wheat harvest in decades – yet more reminders that climate change is a pressing and immediate global crisis. And, as leaves fall and mists rise […]

Museums and galleries in extraordinary times

Virginia Button

As Cornwall’s museums and galleries prepare to reopen, what should be their focus in a post-Covid world? After long months of closure, from 4 July museums and galleries in England have had permission to reopen their doors to visitors. It’s a gradual process, as organisations access their specific health and operational risks, and prepare us […]