Arms campaigners will stage a protest outside the National Gallery tomorrow calling for the institution to end its sponsorship arrangement with an arms manufacturer.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is organising an artful protest in the plaza outside the gallery on Saturday, and calling on the public to write to National Gallery director Nicholas Penny, to pressure the institution to end its relationship with arms company Finmeccanica.

Finmeccanica is listed on the National Gallery website as one of its seven ‘corporate benefactors’, a privilege for which CAAT estimates the arms company pays the gallery “a mere £30,000”, and which grants it access to National Gallery rooms for corporate entertaining. The company has been part of the Gallery’s corporate membership programme since 2006.

The protest will push for the Gallery to end its relationship with Finmeccanica, due to end in October next year. It is also demanding the Gallery confirm it will not host the reception for July’s Farnborough Airshow, as it has in the past, but a National Gallery spokeswoman told civilsociety.co.uk is not hosting an event for any company associated with the Airshow.

“We were shocked to discover the support that the National Gallery is giving to the arms trade,” said Sarah Waldron, a campaigner at CAAT.

“The Gallery is not just taking unethical money, it is actually hiring out its facilities to help arms companies do business… In making this deal it is actively assisting those who profit from conflict and destruction.”

Tomorrow’s protest is being billed by CAAT as an “unfolding spectacle”, which will encourage passersby to create their own artworks. 

The National Gallery had no comment about the calls to end its relationship with Finmeccanica.