Restoring The Gallery

It's now 127 years since the Marianne North Gallery first opened its doors to great public acclaim.

With television, film or 'popular colour' photography yet to be invented, visitors flocked to see the brilliantly-coloured flora, fauna and scenes of local people from around the world that Marianne North carefully recorded in her 833 paintings.

The Marianne North Gallery was beginning to show its age. Unlike today’s purpose-built exhibition spaces, the building had no proper environmental controls so heat, damp and mould were damaging the paintings. The roof was no longer sound and the walls were not weather-tight. Conservation problems with the building also affected the paintings.

Kew looked at how to deal with these problems and decided it was necessary to close the Gallery to the public so that a major restoration project could get underway. The Grade II building and hanging system are listed and Marianne North donated the Gallery and her collection to Kew on condition they remain together.

Specialist staff across the organisation, from conservators and estate management to education and outreach, visitor services, training and volunteers, formed a team to work out how to restore the building and its collections.

Conserving the Paintings

The Marianne North Conservation Project began in 2008 in a newly built Preservation studio in the Herbarium at Kew. This project ran for two years to complete the 833 paintings and had a team of five conservators and one technician.

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