With art galleries and museums delicately navigating the restricted public outings after an unforgiving COVID-19 pandemic that is still not quite under control, art lovers in the United Kingdom welcomed the easing of lockdown by trooping to the country's top museums and art galleries as soon as they were cleared to reopen this week.

On Monday, May 17, the first day of the reopening of museums and art galleries in England, visitors queued excitedly outside the National Gallery in central London for a long-awaited feel of physically being among works of art and cultural artifacts, after the bleak stay-at-home year that was 2020.

Museums and galleries in the UK were okayed to reopen with some level of social-distancing measures in place with visitors required to wear face coverings. The Natural History Museum and British Museum in London and Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery are among the venues that welcomed back visitors on Monday, while venues including Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, and National Museum Cardiff opened later in the week.

One art lover encapsulated the feeling of everyone on the queue when she told Newschain; “It will be amazing to be able to stand in front of the artwork, the real thing,” she said. “I’ve got very bored of staring at a computer screen.”

Another 71-year-old retiree, who had traveled from her home in Ispwich to visit the gallery in the capital, described the latest easing of lockdown as “exciting” and added: “I have missed doing this and I think it’s going to be really great.”

Beaming from ear to ear among the first guests to the gallery was the UK's Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, who also visited Tate Modern to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, which will open to Tate members from May 18 and to members of the public from June 14.

Speaking to the press on the lockdown restriction phases, Secretary Dowden said, “Of course I recognize the anxiety people feel as we assess the situation over the next fortnight in the run-up to stage 4, but today is a huge moment for our hard-hit cultural landscape.

“We’ve supported the nation’s arts organizations, venues, cinemas, and heritage sites during difficult months of necessary closure with our Culture Recovery Fund worth almost £2 billion.

More support will also be on its way to our much-loved museums, music venues, theatres, and historic houses as they reopen, but from today everyone can safely play a part in helping our cultural institutions to get going again.”

Meanwhile, according to a survey of 316 museum and gallery directors conducted by Art Fund, visitor numbers at museums and galleries were down 75% in 2020/21 compared to the previous year.

Of those polled, 39% said they relied on grants from local authorities to get by during the pandemic, while 38% relied on Government funding from the Culture Recovery Fund.

The UK Government had previously unveiled the £1.57 billion fund to save institutions in peril as a result of the global pandemic, plus additional support during the Budget this year.

In all, the spirit of art expeditions, explorations, exhibitions, auctions, fairs, and visits is gradually coming back to pre-COVID 19 times and at Aworanka, we are definitely excited about this as art shouldn't be anything but seen, interacted with, and collected to be displayed for all to enjoy.