Museums in the News Digest Edition

Whoa; I go away for a week, and there is a ton of news items when I come back.

June 30: The Ulster Museum has won the Art Fund Prize, beating out the Ashmolean. Might be fun to go visit for research week next year, y'all?

June 30: The National Gallery's exhibition on art and authenticity, Close Examination, has opened. See a slideshow of works here; a selection of reviews here.

July 1: Charles Saatchi has gifted his Saatchi Gallery to the nation; it will become the Museum of Contemorary Art in London. See the slideshow here.

July 1: Speaking of Saatchi, the Evening Standard lauds Saatchi for making his space available to the intellegentsia's need to hang out and have late dinners in a posh place.

July 7: The NPG needs to raise £100,000 to stop the export of the earliest known British painting of a freed slave. A fascinating story, both of the man and the painting; well worth saving.