Hannah Rothschild steps down as National Gallery’s chair of trustees

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Hannah Rothschild steps down as National Gallery’s chair of trustees | The National Gallery in London announced this morning that Hannah Rothschild CBE will step down as the institution’s chair of trustees in September. Rothschild, who is also a writer and documentary filmmaker, has served on the gallery’s board of trustees since 2009, taking up the position of chair in August 2015. During her tenure, Rothschild has seen the appointment of a new director, Gabriele Finaldi, as well as the acquisition of works by Titian, Corot, Artemisia Gentileschi, and others. Rothschild said that she has ‘decided with sadness to step down in order to devote more time to my writing and to my family’s wide-ranging activities and philanthropic concerns’.

Putin grants Russian citizenship to grandson of collector whose property was allegedly seized by Lenin | President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud, the grandson of Sergei Shchukin, a seminal collector of French Impressionist and Modern art. The decree, which was passed on 13 June and also applies to Delocque-Fourcaud’s wife Christine, coincides with the opening of Shchukin: Biography of a Collection, a major exhibition taking place between 19 June and 15 September at Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition reunites pieces from Shchukin’s extensive collection, which Delacque-Fourcaud says was seized and fragmented by the Soviet state after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Van Gogh’s gun sells for €162,000 | A revolver owned by Vincent Van Gogh has been sold for €162,000 at an auction in Paris, significantly exceeding its estimated value of €40,000–€60,000. The Lefaucheux pinfire revolver is believed by specialists to be the gun with which Van Gogh killed himself, although the cause of the artist’s death is disputed. AuctionArt Rémy le Fur & Associés, which set the estimate for the lot, labelled the gun as ‘the most famous weapon in art history’, but its sale has caused some controversy, with the Institut Van Gogh condemning ‘the commercialisation of a tragic event which deserves more respect’.

Union formed by security workers at Frye Art Museum | Security workers at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle have voted unanimously to unionise, it was announced on Tuesday. The decision to form a union, which has been called the Art Workers Union, was voted for by 6-0, and will be the first group of its type in Seattle. It follows in the wake of recently formed unions at art institutions across North America, a trend that encompasses similar groups at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 in New York, and Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada.