Gallery Donor Gets Last Word, Two Years After Death

Lord John Sainsbury's hidden note objecting to architectural design is found
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 29, 2024 1:14 PM CDT
Gallery Donor Gets Last Word, Two Years After Death
A view of the National Gallery in London.   (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

A strange story has emerged out of London's National Gallery involving a billionaire donor and his posthumous objections to the design of a wing he funded. The billionaire is Lord John Sainsbury, a grocery store magnate who gave tens of millions of dollars to the museum to build what is now known as the Sainsbury Wing, reports NBC News. Sainsbury liked the design by architect Robert Venturi and his wife, Denise Scott Brown, except for the placement of two false columns in the foyer that served no structural purpose, per the Art Newspaper.

Sainsbury lost his fight about the columns, and his son tells the BBC that he and the designers reached a compromise: He could write a note of complaint that would be tucked away in one of the columns. Roughly 35 years after he placed it there, workers renovating the gallery discovered the sealed message:

  • "If you have found this note you must be engaged in demolishing one of the false columns that have been placed in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery," it reads. "I believe that the false columns are a mistake of the architect and that we would live to regret our accepting this detail of his design."
  • Its conclusion: "Let it be known that one of the donors of this building is absolutely delighted that your generation has decided to dispense with the unnecessary columns."
Sainsbury died two years ago at age 94, but his widow, Anya, was present at the note's removal, notes the Art Newspaper. "I was so happy for John's letter to be rediscovered after all these years," she says, "and I feel he would be relieved and delighted for the gallery's new plans and the extra space they are creating." (More National Gallery stories.)

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