Culture Clash ; an American Banker From Goldman Sachs and Britain's Most Inspired Gallery Director Are Locked in a Bitter Power Struggle at the Royal Academy. But This Is More Than Just a War of Personality, Says Godfrey Barker Their Fight Exposes the Crisis in Arts Funding in This Country

Evening Standard - London › April 30, 2004

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Summary

So it's nose to nose again: art versus money, the painters versus the suits.

Down at the Royal Academy, this means trouble for Norman Rosenthal, the arrogant, abrasive, self-admiring, hugely undiplomatic genius who has created Sensation, Monet in the 20th Century, Aztecs and other blockbuster exhibition successes these past 25 years. A month ago, he received 'a letter' from the RA Secretary, Lawton Fitt. It suggested, on the fevered accounts which presently wash around Piccadilly, that he played no part in her future vision for the Academy. The message caused Norman to run to his lawyers Matrix Chambers, where Cherie Booth QC rules like a hawk in fear for his job.

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Culture Clash ; an American Banker From Goldman Sachs and Britain's Most Inspired Gallery Director Are Locked in a Bitter Power Struggle at the Royal Academy. But This Is More Than Just a War of Personality, Says Godfrey Barker Their Fight Exposes the Crisis in Arts Funding in This Country

'He's in real danger this time,' mutters a friend who saw Rosenthal through his clash with the previous RA Secretary in 2002. That was a power struggle which saw Rosenthal get into 'heated exchanges' and 'a minor scuffle in Burlington House', according to an undenied report in The Daily Telegraph, before his boss caved in and resigned.

Fantastic stories in Piccadilly about a further act of violence in 2004 and falls down the stairs cannot, for better or worse, be confirmed.

'He's deeply worried about it; it's very serious,' is the rattle in the bush for Rosenthal. 'He's rallying his friends. It looks like he's going, or she's going; and she's got the money on her side.' Rosentha...

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