Arts tsunami

But Pavilion planners will need to be even more energetic and creative in organising and promoting future events and retaining the building’s place in the sun. For a veritable tsunami wave of art competition is currently striking the Sussex/Kent coast, where long dormant or moribund resorts now see art as a reviver of their fortunes and a magnet for new visitors. This week, Margate, the seaside community with the highest number of closed shops in the country, opened its new Turner Contemporary, hoping that it will save the dying town. Closer to hand, Hastings, now officially listed as the second most deprived seaside resort in England (Jaywick, Essex holds that doleful honour) will open the new Jerwood Art Foundation on the historic Stade in June, with the same aim in mind. While at Eastbourne, the new Towner Art Gallery, only opened in 2009, is staging shows of growing size and importance.

All this current frantic seaside artistic endeavour makes the pioneering start in St Ives, where Tate St Ives, now a national focus of contemporary art, opened in l993, seem a long while ago.

However, it should be remembered that the De La Warr dates from the mid Thirties, and so, unlike its newer competitors, has the additional appeal of also being a British icon of Modernist architecture - a visual attraction in itself. Let us hope that the imaginative and pioneering spirit that imbued its public-spirited creator and gave it its name, will continue to spur great efforts and above all positive and dynamic thinking from all those, from salaried staff to municipal authorities, charged with its future.

MICHAEL GREEN

Marina Arcade

Bexhill-on-Sea