I had taken the big camera for a sensor clean across the river at Vauxhall and retreated to Tate Britain for a coffee and a sit down...
It was a remarkably good machiattto with a small glass of water on the side!

Once recovered I ventured back down the stairs and wandered into a display area, Room 18, featuring Prunella Clough. I quickly recognised that there might be an issue with the lighting and sure enough found that about 2/3rds of the spectrum was missing in the spectroscope. That was not a complete surprise but did account for the dull appearence of paintings on the wall...

Moving on into Clore Gallery I was impressed by the new hang of the Turner and Constable paintings after the previous special exhibition but was distressed to find that the lighting here was also completely compromised.

It was the same for all of the rooms that I looked at today...

Most notably, in a side room with some of the late paintings by Turner was a small Rothko painting.

Untitled c1950-2
oil on canvas
190 x 101 cm
© Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/DACS 2026

I did surreptitiously try using flash to fill out an image but it did not make a big difference as the light level was quite high initially!

The second image here of the Rothko does show a warmer aspect with the flash exposure...

Both images from an iPhone camera are somewhat brittle/shallow!

So, the galleries look very well and evenly lit but sadly they are doing the paintings a serious injustice. I know that lighting of similar appearance is in use at galleries elsewhere in London where a full emission spectrum illuminates paintings 'correctly'!