Rifa winner will sleep against the wonder of art in the National Gallery

▲ In this bed – Decorated with items from a collaborative collection between the gallery and the Marks & Spencer furniture store – the artist and writer Gillian Phillips will spend the night.Photo courtesy of the gallery

Of the writing

La Jornada newspaper
Friday, May 9, 2025, p. 3

Awakening surrounded by several of the best paintings in the world will be a reality for Gillian Phillips, an artist and resident writer of the English city Sheffield, being the first person who will spend the night in the National Gallery before his total reopening to the public, as part of the celebrations of the 200 anniversary of the Pinacoteca.

Phillips was randomly selected in the largest raffle in the history of that museum space, and will enter the Sainsbury wing on Friday, after it remained closed for two years; There, you will experience the greatest renewal of the entire collection of the gallery, through the exhibition CC Land: The Wonder of Art (CC Land: The Wonder of Art).

The lucky mother and grandmother of 10 children, a lecturer, mentor and trust of a charity, can enjoy the prize, which consists of sleeping in a bed decorated with items of a collaborative collection between the Marks & Spencer furniture store and the National Gallery, which will be placed in the middle of the Sainsbury room, located on the bridge that connects the newly renewed room with the rest of the space.

This area will house the oldest paintings in the enclosure collection. Some pieces will have adequate areas specifically for them, such as Baptism of Christ, by Piero Della Francesca, which will be located in a chapel room.

He Retablo, of San Pier Maggiore, will be exhibited in an impressive new construction frame, while The battle of San Romano, From Paolo Uccello, he will return after three years of restoration. There will also be new theme wings, among them, one that will shine, because all the paintings hung there will have a common element: the golden color.

The statement released by the National Gallery to announce the winner reproduces the words of Gillian Phillips, for whom “it is a great privilege to have the opportunity to wake up The wonder of art. Since I was a child I love the National Gallery, and although I no longer live in London, I still consider my artistic home, and their paintings are constantly present in my mind. ”

In addition to sleeping surrounded by art, you can enjoy a dinner with a guest in Locatelli, the new restaurant in the gallery, in charge of the star chef Michelin Giorgio Locatelli, in collaboration with Searcy’s.

Subsequently, he will be guided in a private and personalized visit for CC Land: The wonder of art Before spending the night and, when awakening, on the morning of May 10, it will be the first to enjoy breakfast in Locatelli to have the privilege of exploring the gallery before the reopening of the Sainsbury wing.

An unmatched opportunity to contemplate more than a thousand works of art that cover the evolution of Western Europe painting from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries, with iconic masterpieces and unpublished paintings.

At 10 am, the National Gallery will open so that the public rediscovers the enclosure and knows the new rooms dedicated to artists such as Tiziano, Rembrandt and Monet; To dead nature, as artists have practiced over time, already materials such as cake and gold.

CC Land: The wonder of art It will have more than 20 new loans and eight new acquisitions that will join the National Collection on the subject of the Bicentennial.

Special mention deserves the exhibition of The crucifix (1310-1315), by Segna Di Bonaventura, who for the first time in the history of the gallery will be visible suspended from the ceiling along the central axis of the Sainsbury Chamber, which will allow the public to contemplate the work as it would have been seen in the fourteenth century.

Founded by the Parliament in 1824, the National Gallery complied on May 10, 2024 the Bicentennial of its Foundation, date that marked the beginning of an art festival, creativity and imagination throughout the United Kingdom and the world, including its headquarters in London, which to celebrate the event carried out the renewal of one of the most important rollees in the world, whose result can be seen after more than two years of two years. of construction.

During the renovation and to celebrate its bicentennial, the gallery shared online 200 paintings for 200 years, with 200 inputs of academic catalog, a total of 2.2 million words of academic research and 2,700 images, including 75 radiographs, 155 infrared images and more than 250 photomicrographs.