Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Paintings in wartime
Explore the story behind the National Gallery's wartime Picture of the Month exhibitions
War And Conflict-Wwii (1940)LIFE Photo Collection
The Threat of War
In 1938, faced with the looming threat of war, the National Gallery’s Trustees approved plans to evacuate the collection of paintings from London. An initial small-scale rehearsal was carried out in 1938, but it was in August 1939 that the official evacuation began in earnest.
Loading of Great Western Railways (GWR) container with paintings before transfer to Manod Quarry (1941)The National Gallery, London
Evacuation of the Paintings
It took just 10 days for the entire collection to be evacuated. By the time that war was officially declared on 3 September 1939, the paintings had already been sent to various scattered, secure locations across England and Wales.
National Gallery Annual Review (1938-54)The National Gallery, London
Paintings Underground
When air raids intensified in 1940, it was decided that the paintings should be reunited for safekeeping (as described here in a National Gallery Wartime Review). The search for a secure underground location, big enough to house the entire collection, got underway...
By September 1940, a site had been found. The underground caverns of Manod Quarry (a disused slate mine near Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales) were chosen as the new subterranean home for the collection, and extensive works were undertaken to prepare the site.
The first truckloads of paintings arrived at Manod in August 1941. The national collection remained at the Quarry from this time until the end of the Second World War - with some exceptions...
National Gallery Annual Review (1938-54)The National Gallery, London
Picture of the Month
By 1942 bombing raids had lessened and, back in London, public desire to see pictures from the collection return to the Gallery was growing. In a letter sent to The Times it was suggested that a selection of the 'nation's masterpieces' be returned to London for display.
Later that year it was decided that certain paintings would make the long journey back from Wales to London. The chosen paintings would travel to London in pairs, and one picture would go on public display in the Gallery each month.
The First Picture of the Month
The first painting brought back from Wales in March 1942 was Titian's ‘Noli me Tangere’. Each day, the painting was hung for public view on a portable screen (pictured here) and was removed every night to a secure shelter in the basement of the Gallery.
The Umbrellas (about 1881-6) by Pierre-Auguste RenoirThe National Gallery, London
The Last Picture of the Month
These displays continued until the end of the war. The 37th and final picture chosen to return to London from Wales was Renoir's 'The Umbrellas'. But why might the Gallery's Director at the time, Kenneth Clark, have chosen this painting as the final wartime Picture of the Month.
'The Umbrellas' was a painting which differed greatly from those that had been displayed before it. Many of the previously chosen paintings depicted subject matter of a religious or mythological nature – which, it was thought, may resonate most strongly during a time of crisis.
Painted in the late 19th century, ‘The Umbrellas’ was the only Impressionist painting to appear as a wartime Picture of the Month.
Perhaps as the war was coming to an end, this painting presented an opportunity to display something very different - marking the close of the war and paving the way for the evacuated paintings' return to their home in Trafalgar Square?
While the wartime Picture of the Month scheme came to an end with the display of Renoir’s painting, the Picture of the Month tradition is still continued at the National Gallery today.
