Pictures in the hall
MOST bankers (says the poet Ogden Nash) dwell in marble halls, Which they do to encourage deposits and discourage with- drawals. Now that they have got plenty of money and would rather like to lend it, their halls lead ignominious second lives as restaurants with themes. Lord Alexander has had a far better idea. As chairman of the National Westminster, he inherited the noble but superfluous banking hall built for his City head office by Mewes and Davies, architects of the Ritz. Now he is turning it into a picture gallery, which he will open next month to the public. NatWest has its own fine collection, some of it tracing back to the founding families, some presumably accepted as security, but much of it modern British art (Moore, Hockney, Riley, Hitchens, Hodgkin) bought when the bank was still building new halls and needed new pictures to put in them. Some bankers dwell in offices where they hog all the pic- tures, But those who let us share their plea- sure earn our praise and not our strictures.
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