National Gallery should scrap 1900 cut-off date, says art expert

Julian Spalding says work by artists such as David Hockney could hang alongside old masters in bicentenary year

The former director of three of Britain’s most important museums has called for the National Gallery to lift its longstanding cut-off date of about 1900 for its collection because it suggests “painting died then as a great art form”.

Julian Spalding, who has headed public collections in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, argued the National Gallery could, in its bicentenary this year, “resuscitate the great art of painting” by hanging pictures by David Hockney and other “great artists” alongside old masters.