Income at the National Gallery has increased by over £20m, according to its recently published annual report and accounts for the year ended March 2023.
The National Gallery, which was established in 1824, has reported an income for 2022-23 of £82m.
This is up from £61.7m the year prior. In 2022-23, total expenditure amounted to £59.5m, compared to £47.9m the year prior, resulting in initial net income of £22.5m.
The accounts show self-generated income from fundraising was £33.1m, compared to £22.4m in 2021-22.
Income from donations and legacies for the year totalled £59.4m, which was up from £50m in 2022. This figure includes income relating to picture acquisitions, government grant-in-aid and other donations, as well as legacy income.
Excluding grant-in-aid, this figure is £28.7m, compared to £19.2m the year prior.
‘Admissions income has increased significantly’
Income from charitable activities was also up, to £5.5m from £1.7m in 2021-22. This includes admission to exhibitions, exhibition touring income and other educational events.
“The increase relates to the return of a larger number of visitors to our temporary exhibitions following the easing of lockdown restrictions that impacted capacity and programming in the prior year.
“Whilst admissions income has increased significantly from the prior year, it did fall slightly short of original budgets primarily due to international visitors returning more slowly than originally anticipated,” the accounts state.
Income from trading activities also “increased substantially” to £16.3m, from £9.6m in 2021-22.
This was “primarily thanks to strong results from National Gallery Global, the Gallery’s trading subsidiary, with both the retail and events businesses showing good signs of recovery from the Covid-impacted years”.
Income relating primarily to corporate and individual membership schemes, and sponsorship, was £6.9m, up from £5m the year prior.
‘Still financial pressures attributable to Covid’
Grant-in-aid from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) amounted to £30.7m, which was a similar level to the year prior, at £30.8m.
This includes the last tranche of £2.2m (2022: £5.3m) of emergency funding allocated to the gallery in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The accounts state: “Even following the easing of lockdown restrictions in 2021-22, the gallery still experienced financial pressures attributable to Covid-19 during 2022-23. Although our UK audience has returned to pre pandemic levels, international visitors have been slower to return, and as a result self-generated income has not yet fully recovered.
“We were therefore grateful to receive the final tranche of support from DCMS in response to Covid-19 of £2.2m which enabled us to continue to operate effectively during the year.”
The accounts state that the National Gallery recognises that the “key risk to the investment portfolio is the erosion of capital value by inflation and therefore the long term portfolio needs to be invested in assets which mitigate that risk”.
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