The Tate’s grubby cancellation of Rex Whistler

Tate Britain’s Rex Whistler restaurant will never reopen the gallery announced yesterday. The restaurant – once known for its excellent and well priced wine list – won’t reopen due to the apparent offensiveness of the mural on its walls. Diners used to be embraced by the mural, The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, a painting by Rex Whistler, an artist best known for his decorative murals in grand country houses. He was killed in France in 1944 fighting the Nazis, in other words engaging in anti-racist action. When the Tate restaurant first opened in 1927 it was described as ‘the most amusing room in Britain’. It was a favourite spot for BBC political editors to lunch their political contacts.

Not so long ago the Tate was still proud of The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats. As part of Tate Britain’s £45 million rejuvenation in 2013 the mural was extensively restored – of which much was made in the museum’s annual report for that year.