San Francisco Frontiers - UK's Hockney warns moving Bayeux Tapestry would be 'madness'

"Some things are too precious to take a risk with," the artist wrote in an opinion piece for the daily Independent about plans for the 11th-century artefact. "Moving the Bayeux Tapestry is one of them.

"It is fragile, which makes it madness to think of moving it. It is too big a risk," he wrote in Wednesday's article.

Museum director Nicholas Cullinan said that while his team understood these concerns, the London museum "has a world-leading conservation and collections team who are experts at handling and caring for this type of material.

"We send and receive thousands of loans each year -- including ancient frescoes and textiles which are older than the Bayeux tapestry -- and their condition and safety is always of paramount importance," he added in a statement to AFP.

The 68-metre-long (224-foot-long) tapestry, which depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066, is now in a secret storage location, having been moved from its museum in the French town of Bayeux in Normandy for the first time in 40 years.

French President Emmanuel Macron last year agreed to loan the medieval tapestry to Britain for 10 months from September 2026 to celebrate Franco-British relations.

French museums will in exchange be loaned ancient treasures mainly from the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo site, one of England's most important archaeological locations.

But the plan has sparked an outcry from heritage experts concerned over the ancient embroidery's already fragile state.

- 'Vulnerable' -

Since 2020, experts have meticulously documented 24,204 stains, 9,646 holes and 30 tears in the artwork.

A feasibility study for the transport of the Bayeux Tapestry to London, completed by three experts in March 2022, remains "confidential" at the request of the Normandy cultural authorities who commissioned it.

Hockney, who first saw the tapestry in 1967, says he has visited it 20 times in the past three years, adding it was "fundamental to our island story".

But he warned: "The linen backing is weakened by age, and the wool embroidery threads are vulnerable to stress."

"Rolling, unrolling, or hanging it in a new way can cause tearing, stitch loss and distortion of the fabric."

The tapestry was added to UNESCO's "Memory of the World" register in 2007.

A two-year renovation project had been due to begin in 2025 but was postponed indefinitely and the relic was instead off display while the museum currently housing it undergoes renovations of its own.

Hockney suggested it should stay where it is, and that "an identical copy" should be made.

"It is not difficult. It would look fantastic."

G.Allen--SFF