Richard Green, who has steered York Art Gallery through 25 years, tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON about the gallery's future as he steps down

RICHARD Green is clearing away his compact, neat office this week, a slim, yellow and brown room in keeping with the municipal colour scheme of York Art Gallery.

After nearly 26 years in charge, he has left his scholarly post of curator to turn freelance at 56, initially in York, then most probably the art capital of London, where he anticipates combining exhibition projects with lecturing, consulting and plenty of travel.

This is a time of change at the gallery, and not merely the fashionable dropping of 'City' from the name, in line with the Tate Gallery becoming Tate; nor last October's removal of the £2 admission charge for out-of-own visitors that predictably had had such a disastrous effect on attendance figures.

It will not, however, be a quick change: symbolically, the 'City' lettering is yet to be removed from the gallery in Exhibition Square.

Like a pub under new management, there will be a coming together of the old and new, in the shape of York Museums Trust taking over control from City of York Council. The trust's new gallery sign in white and blue, atop the old, looks out of keeping but it does suggest a fresh age.

The difficulty lies in the balance between the gallery's central role of guardianship and the more sexy livery of 21st century galleries, from Tate Modern in an old London power station to Baltic in a former corn mill on the Gateshead quay-side.

You may wish for a revolving door of eye-catching, even controversial, exhibitions in more than one upstairs room; you may wish for a caf and modern education facilities; you may wish for more purchasing of contemporary York work; but where are the rooms, where is the finance?

Richard Green has had to deal with reality, not wishful thinking.

"We have always worked within tremendous constraints of money, staff levels and a building that's bursting at the seams," says Richard, who had insufficient resources for an education officer yet still found ways to promote educational projects.

Note his job title: curator, not artistic director. His role has been the preservation, presentation and enhancement of the gallery's permanent collection, allied to a "lively" programme of exhibitions that have spanned Canaletto and Turner to video installations and Tracey Emin.

"My first aim undoubtedly was to maintain - and improve - existing standards," he said in an Evening Press interview in 1984, seven years into his stewardship. "I wanted to preserve the past and to enhance the present. Only then should one go about the task of promoting the gallery."

That policy did not change: his legacy will be the overseeing of a final acquisition, a 1767 portrait by Scottish artist Allan Ramsay of aristocrat Jean Abercromby, in need of conservation before going on display in the summer.

The price tag was £625,000, a sum accumulated through grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Arts Collection Fund and the Friends of York Art Gallery, and the graft and persuasive skills of Richard Green.

The work had looked destined for the overseas market; Ramsay had been made a priority on the list of desirable acquisitions for the gallery's estimable 18th century collection. With foreigners thwarted and the collection boosted, this was a job doubly well done, but it was not the stuff of big headlines in the way that a Damian Hirst or Tracey Emin purchase would be - or the January 1999 armed robbery was.

"Cutting-edge art is very much the focus of public attention, and even the names are household names, which modern British artists were not 25 years ago, with the exception of David Hockney," says Richard.

"As a gallery we are, like it or not, in the business of keeping. You can hold modern exhibitions anywhere that has the right heating and lighting, but our business is preserving, and we're committed by all sorts of things that we're signed up to keep the artwork in the best possible way. Our duty is to make the best use of them."

York Art Gallery is both museum and gallery, a bridge between past and present. Richard cannot predict the future, although he welcomes York Museums Trust making the right noises over both a caf and educational facilities.

"Times have been difficult for galleries but the Renaissance of the Regions report will hopefully channel some money their way," he says. "What's been lost, however, is the need for core funding, in a world that has so many rival interests."

The 1999 robbery - 20 paintings worth £700,000 were later recovered - has left Richard with one consoling thought: "Maybe there will be those locally who thought, 'Goodness, if the gallery is worth stealing from, it must be worth something'."

Updated: 10:55 Wednesday, April 02, 2003