The Walker Art Gallery wanted to challenge history. Have they succeeded?

Three years after Black Lives Matter, we returned to Liverpool’s grandest gallery

Dear members — last year we paid a visit to the Walker Art Gallery at an interesting time in its history. Curator Alex Patterson gave us a tour of the gallery and explained that the Walker was undergoing something of a reckoning in the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests. As with many other galleries, much of their collection could be linked — in one way or another — back to the Transatlantic slave trade. They were vowing to rethink how their art was displayed and to wanted to ensure visitors were given a greater idea of where it came from. This week we went along to find out how they’ve been doing.