National Gallery citizens' assembly urges museum to be brave

By Elena Vasquez

The National Gallery in London has published the recommendations of a 55-member citizens' assembly that the museum says gives it "a mandate to be brave".

The initiative, titled NG Citizens, was announced in July last year. It forms part of an effort to transform the gallery's governance by bringing members of the public from across the UK directly into its policy-making process. The new report outlines the recommendations and shared vision developed by the 55 participants over five sessions held between November 2025 and March 2026.

What did the assembly recommend?

The assembly recommended that the museum should "embrace and grow commercial opportunities" and use technology to support personalised itineraries, especially for "under-represented" groups.

Other key recommendations include:

• Being more informative about the gallery's wider history, representation and the context behind the art
• Making the collection a true reflection of the UK — a change members described as urgent
• Bringing in new, diverse and loyal audiences

The overarching question put to members was: "What do you want from the UK's National Gallery? How can it bring people and paintings together in authentic and meaningful ways, now and in the future?" A series of eight principles, defined as the "core values that guide how the gallery can move towards the vision", shaped the sessions.

Core challenges on the agenda included: "How can the National Gallery balance its role as a free public gallery whilst being commercially minded? What is the social value of art? How can art galleries explain and support this? Can art ever be open to everyone?"

What happens next?

Over the next four years, smaller panels made up of assembly members will work directly with the gallery to oversee implementation. "NG Citizens will now continue into its second phase: the Citizens' Panel. The panel will consist of three separate cohorts between 2026 and 2030," the report says.

Some issues were off-limits: ideas that would significantly change existing buildings, involve buying or selling paintings, or compromise the gallery's role as an arm's length body of the UK government.

The report concludes on the experiment's significance: "The National Gallery was the first of its kind to do this on this scale, in the world. We can accept it was never going to be perfect; it would present challenges, but we hope observers can learn from our experience… To have a group of people that we can work with over future years, who will maintain a critical and supportive perspective, presents opportunities far beyond the usual focus group approach."

Will the gallery act on it?

Maurice Davies, a UK culture consultant at Cultural Associates Oxford, calls the report "quite remarkable" but questions whether the National Gallery will be "bold and brave enough" to take the recommendations forward.

He tells The Art Newspaper: "The panel have concluded that the gallery needs to be far more than it currently is; a collection of European paintings based in the centre of London. They say the collection 'urgently' needs to be far more diverse and to represent the diversity of the UK so it needs to change its collecting policy significantly.

"And they say the gallery should share 'paintings and resources' throughout the UK which suggests the gallery might want to reconsider its current hugely expensive project to extend its building in central London in favour of using resources to work with museums and galleries in a wide range of locations."

That extension has significant financial backing. Last September, the gallery received pledges of £150m each — £300m in total — from Michael Moritz's Crankstart foundation and the Julia Rausing Trust for the planned new extension, scheduled for completion in the early 2030s.

The tension is clear: the assembly urges the gallery to look outward across the UK, while £300m in pledged funding is tied to a central London building project. How the Citizens' Panel navigates that divide between 2026 and 2030 will test whether the "mandate to be brave" translates into policy.