FOIA Documents: The National Gallery’s partial refusal on the Picasso protest costs

This page hosts the National Gallery’s partial response to a Freedom of Information request from Urgent Matter. The response, reference F889, was sent on August 28, 2026 by Nicholas Smith, an archivist in the gallery’s research department.

The first attachment, headed “[External] National Gallery Incident today – 09 October,” is the gallery’s same-day notification to Arts Council England, which administers the indemnity scheme. It states that “no damage was done to any painting” and lists the ten loaned works then hanging in Room 43. Names and contact details are redacted.

The second attachment, “Fw: National Gallery Room 43,” is the email chain between the gallery and the lender’s representative on the afternoon of the protest. The gallery asks the representative to “share this with the owners." The representative replies that the owner has been “reassured … that their pictures are undamaged.” The chain carries the letterhead of the dealer Nevill Keating Pictures.

The third attachment, “F889 Question 7,” reproduces extracts from the loan agreement for the Picasso, covering government indemnity, the cap on the gallery’s liability, and its right to remove a work from display for safety reasons.

Read the story: National Gallery refuses to show how a Gaza protest that harmed no painting cost it £7,196

National Gallery refuses to show how Gaza protest cost it £7,196

The refusal came in a partial answer to a Freedom of Information request from Urgent Matter.

Urgent MatterAdam Schrader