Earlier this month Victor Khureya, our Executive Operations Director in London was featured in a piece on Sky News exploring the impact that Brexit has had on the UK art market

Please click here to see the video interview!

We are thrilled to be able to share with you our new brochure highlighting the services we offer to our Interior Design Clients…. Please click link below to view!

Interior-Design-Brochure

COVID – 19: The state of play.

In late 2019 there were murmurings of a new SARS type virus originating in Wuhan, capital of the Hubei province in central China. In early 2020 Wuhan was placed under a near total ‘lockdown’ – a word that most of the world was unfamiliar with at the time but would soon become part of everyday vocabulary. As China struggled to keep a lid on the virus the world looked on. There had been viruses originating in Asia more than once since the turn of the century and their spread had always been largely contained, with only a smattering of cases hitting the rest of the world. Why would this one be any different? As warnings from the press and the WHO amplified the Western world went about business largely as normal. On 20^th January 2020, the WHO declared COVID–19 a public health emergency of international concern and on 11^th March a pandemic was declared – the first since swine flu in 2009, a virus which although global had hit Asia hardest.

This time was to be different. On 9^th, March the Italian government announced an immediate nationwide lockdown, superseding more local lockdowns as the virus tore through the country and the number of cases and deaths sadly mounted. This would be followed in the coming weeks by lockdowns of various severity across Europe, the United States and the world. By late March / early April the world as we knew it had come to a standstill. All but non-essential travel was strongly advised against or forbidden, public gatherings banned, and museums, galleries and concert halls shuttered. In the space of about ten days almost all our facilities went from being extremely busy to having little to no work.

As we view the lay of the land in early June the virus in Europe and North America seems to be slowly being brought under control and lockdowns are gradually being eased. The early green shoots of a slow recovery can finally be seen.

Our Response

Following local government guidance has been the keystone to our response globally. Paris was the first of our facilities to close down – completely, as mandated by the French government, from 17^th March. We were able to reply to estimates and questions via email, but nothing more until the government allowed us to re-open on 11^th May and we can now once again service local deliveries, installations, imports and exports. With our logistical support, French galleries and auction houses have partially reopened with social distancing measures in place.

In California we maintained a skeleton staff at both our facilities (San Francisco and Los Angeles) throughout the entire lockdown period and are gradually increasing the frequency of services as demand and restrictions allow. Our viewing rooms have proven especially popular as a location where clients can view stock whilst galleries are closed and due to their size, there are no issues with maintaining social distancing requirements. In New York our two viewing rooms have been so popular among Gallery and Auction House clients that we are planning to open a third in the very near future.

In California, as in all our facilities have instigated a COVID–19 protocol to protect both our staff and clients based on guidelines we have received from government. A summary of these measures can be found below:

• All technicians are issued with personal hand sanitizer, wipes, clean masks and nitrile gloves.
• Each Technician will wear a clean mask, and gloves for each project, once completed the Technicians will safely dispose of those items and sanitize his/her hands.
• For technicians that have multiple jobs in a day, the above will occur for each job.
• Tools and supplies will be wiped down after every job if they enter the worksite.
• Truck door handles, locks and steering wheel will be wiped before every use.
• At the end of the day a thorough cleaning of our fleet is performed.
• Staff members have been told that they are not to report to work if they feel they have any type of illness and should self-isolate until they are able to have a COVID – 19 test. If the test is positive, they must continue to self-isolate for the fourteen-day period. If negative they can return to work.

In Florida we worked with a skeleton staff from 24^th March, gradually bringing staff back from 13^th April as demand started to increase and returning to a full complement of staff as of 1^st June. We have also been able to complete our latest expansion project in West Palm Beach. The enlarged facility will give us a total of 31,000 square feet in our main building, boasting new state of the art offices alongside a 600 square foot viewing room with an impressive 20-foot-high ceiling. Due to the impact of the virus this has been completed ever so slightly later than originally planned, but we were able to continue construction whilst adhering to social distancing measures and are ready to hit the ground running with this exciting new facility.

New York City, which has been the epicentre of the virus in the US, started slowly relaxing lockdown restrictions on 8^th June. The art community is still holding its breath; most Auction Houses aim to reopen from mid to late June, whilst many Art Galleries are plan to re-open in early September. For institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art , it will be mid-August. As they re-open we are confident of a quick rebound in demand.

Health and safety is of paramount importance to us and we have taken these steps to protect staff and clients in our offices, warehouses, vehicles and delivery locations.

The lockdown in New York was so complete that even though we have been able to remain open with a skeleton staff there is now a back log of work and projects that requires comprehensive planning to work through. We are working closely with clients in order to alleviate as much of the pressure as we can at the present time. We expect museums and corporate clients to come back at a much slower pace as it will take longer for them to adjust to the new normal. As always, safety is key. We relaunched our shuttle services across the USA on June 1^st and expect to run a full schedule through the years end, details of which can be found on our website.

Back in Europe we relaunched our European groupage services on 8^th June and will be offering a slightly reduced service that will be reassessed depending on demand. London, like New York and Paris, has been hit especially hard by this pandemic and we worked with a skeleton staff from 23^rd March when lockdown was announced. As London and the rest of the UK gradually opens up it is important that we remain vigilant to the threat that the virus still poses. The UK government’s Export Control Unit, which administers export licenses for transport out of the UK, closed for lockdown and reopened on 27^th May. Consequently, it is working through a huge backlog meaning that any shipments requiring a license can expect a delay for the foreseeable future.

UK airfreight rates as elsewhere remain very high due to the lack of available space and many clients are opting to hold off on shipments until they come down. We predict this to happen as airfreight capacity comes in over the coming months.

Looking Forward

Like all businesses and individuals this pandemic has had a fundamental impact on our operations. It was the joker in the pack that was impossible to prepare for. Never in our history has there been such a complete shutdown of life and restriction to our usual freedoms. As we move gradually towards a new normal, we feel confident that we are well positioned to face what lies ahead. We will continue to constantly update our procedures based on the evolving guidelines from local governments and as always, our commitment to excellence and attention to detail will remain second to none.

Gander & White is ever growing. We are delighted to announce the completion of our latest expansion project in West Palm Beach. The enlarged facility will give us a total of 31,000 square feet in our main building, boasting new state of the art offices alongside a 600 square foot viewing room with an impressive 20-foot-high ceiling.

Due to the impact of the corona virus we have finished ever so slightly later than originally planned, but we have been able to carry on construction whilst adhering to social distancing measures meaning that as the world gradually returns to a new normal we are ready to hit the ground running with this exciting new facility. Our temporary certificate of occupancy is valid from June 5^th with a permanent one  due two weeks later.

Our commitment to excellence and attention to detail remain, as always, second to none!

Please click here to view video!

Palm Beach location is increasing its size from 20,000 to 30,000 sq. ft. Having laid the foundations last year, we now are completing the external structural work for the new space! After this stage is finished, work will begin on the internal structures in the facility.

Please click here to read more!

One of our directors, Francelle Bradford White, has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List! The award is in recognition of her voluntary and charitable work across numerous sectors.

Francelle has raised funds and volunteered for many charitable causes for most of her adult life. She has carried out extensive fundraising efforts for the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (now the Lullaby Trust) and also been involved with Childline, Whizz-Kidz, the British Red Cross, the Alzheimer’s Society and Dementia UK. She has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for these causes over the course of her involvement with them.

Francelle has also volunteered extensively with the British criminal justice system. She has long been an independent custody visitor overseeing the way police treat people held in custody in local police stations. She was ultimately appointed by the Home Office to the Independent Monitoring Board at one of the UK’s largest prisons.

Six years ago, Francelle founded the Andrée Grioterray White Charitable Trust. The charity, founded in her mother’s name, is dedicated to funding research into any form of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and to provide support to those suffering from it. Andrée was a director of Gander & White, having married our founder, Frank White, and taking over the company following his death.

In 2014 Francelle wrote Andrée’s War, which was published by Elliott & Thompson. The book is based on Francelle’s mother’s wartime diaries, charting Andrée’s time working as a courier throughout occupied France in the French Resistance during World War Two. All net income from book sales and all author and speaker fees Francelle receives are donated to the Andrée Grioterray White Charitable Trust. Francelle hopes to sell the film rights to the book.

Francelle has been a director of Gander & White since the early 1970s, joining the company founded by her father in 1933 and run from the mid-60s by her mother, Andrée, until Patrick White, Francelle’s brother, took up the reins. She continues to be a director today.

“I am honoured to receive a BEM in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List” Francelle said. “It feels quite fitting that this honour has been awarded at the start of the year that would have marked my mother’s 100^th birthday and I am proud to have used her amazing war time story to raise money to fight a very cruel disease.”

We wanted to share some highlights from the past year that we shared on social media so we have picked a top post from each month to look back on. Head to our social media platforms on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with our operations around the world!

Please click here to see highlights of G&W Social Media from 2019

Our work often brings us into contact with the works of some of the ‘greats’ of art history. In June 2019 we handled masterpieces by the great British painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). The exhibition, Masters of the Golden Age: Gainsborough, Constable, Turner and Lawrence, was opened at Gainsborough’s House in Suffolk in the east of England. Gainsborough grew up in this house and it has now become a museum, and we were thrilled to assist the institution in one of its most ambitious exhibitions to date.

Major paintings from the Golden Age of British painting were to be loaned for the show, most for the first time ever. Although some of the collection was London based, the majority of works were based in Jersey, a 5-hour ferry journey from the south coast of the U.K.

We sent a team to Jersey to undertake de-installation of the nine works, and crated them in bespoke fine art crates that we ensured were suitable for the journey between the island, just off the coast of France, and their destination in the east of England.

Our team carried out the sea- and road-transportation of artworks to Gainsborough’s House in several stages. The Jersey collection was brought to one of our London fine art facilities for a short time for storage while we brought in the works from other locations. Once altogether, the collection of loaned works was transported in a single consolidated load to Suffolk. Once on-site at the museum we installed the works under the eye of the museum’s curators. For smaller institutions that do not have their own technical teams, this is the best option; trained and fully insured art technicians can conduct the hanging quickly and efficiently with low risk of error or damage.

Once the exhibition closed in late 2019, we handled the return and re-installation of the works to Jersey, to the complete satisfaction of the lender.

Gainsborough’s House is in the early stages of a major redevelopment that will see the extended site turned into a new national center for the celebration of Gainsborough’s work and British art. Three exhibition galleries will be created, and a viewing floor and event space will also be added. In the future larger and more frequent exhibitions will be held, containing works ranging from the masters of the Golden Age to leading contemporary artists, meaning that fine art shippers will be working even more closely with this particular institution.

It was our pleasure to work with Gainsborough’s House to facilitate the delivery and return of loans for this exhibition, a great show of an important period in British art history.

All images courtesy of Gainsborough’s House Society

In Spring 2019, we had the pleasure of delivering the works of celebrated British painter Alfred Munnings for an exhibition at the Munnings Art Museum at Castle House, his former family home in Essex.

Behind the Lines: Alfred Munnings, War Artist, 1918 looks at the works Munnings was commissioned to create by Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook in the final year of the First World War. His sketches, drawings and paintings depicting the Canadian Cavalry Brigade and the Canadian Forestry Corps, bought by the Canadian government, first went on display at London’s Royal Academy in 1919 and brought significant exposure to the artist. A century later, and the exhibition at the Munnings Art Museum marks this pivotal period in the artist’s career.

The 41 works on show, usually housed in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, were originally moved to the UK in late 2018 following significant frame restoration. We were contacted by the Canadian War Museum’s loans registrar to tender our services in moving the artworks from their first temporary exhibition venue at the National Army Museum in London to their eventual destination at the Munnings Art Museum.

In March 2019, ahead of the start of the exhibition, we planned, organised and carried out the shipment of all works to Essex. This required the handling of all necessary administration involved in holding an exhibition of internationally loaned works; this included obtaining a tax suspension from the UK government’s National Import Reliefs Unit to cover the loan from the museum. Our UK Museum Operations Director, Amanda Sharp, directed the project’s administration and practicalities, and was in contact with the museum registrar in Canada and the team at Munnings Art Museum to facilitate all stages of the shipment from start to finish.

We transported the collection of 41 works in 4ft x 4ft x 9ft custom-built crates from London to Essex, a journey of approximately two hours. While there are unique complexities that come with delivering to what was formerly a family home (as opposed to delivering to a purpose-built museum or gallery), our experience working with private clients meant we were more than up to the task! One of our 3.5 tonne vehicles was skilfully navigated through the narrow gate onto the Museum estate, moving it as close as possible to the Tudor and Georgian building. Carrying the crated works through some restrictive doors and corridors, we finally delivered the works to the exhibition space. Our art technicians often carry out the hanging of exhibitions for clients, but on this occasion an art technician from the Canadian War Museum was on site to oversee the hanging of the works.

Three days later, we returned to pick up the crates from the museum for storage in one of our fine art facilities in London. A successful job carried out to the satisfaction of all involved!