Complaints About Guildhall Art Gallery Underfunding & Why The Square Mile Is Better Described As ‘Destination Dirty Money’ Than ‘Destination City’

A letter dated this month (June 2026) and reproduced below makes it clear that the Friends of the Guildhall Art Gallery consider what is essentially the home of the City of London council’s art collection to be underfunded: …the Corporation’s apparent lack of interest in the Gallery, which is chronically underfunded and thus understaffed, despite its evident local and worldwide excellent reputation. The promised new culture strategy has been postponed at least twice. The committee will continue to put even more pressure on the Corporation. The Guildhall Gallery doesn’t have much of a global reputation and its local reputation is considerably less than stellar. Among those Londoners who have heard of it, the Guildhall Art Gallery is often perceived as a moribund institution where dull portraits of local politicians – Lord Mayors of London &c. – clog up a stuffy collection. Aside from housing portraits of a good number of City ‘grandees’ who were also slave traders,* there are larger…