BBC Learning and the Public Catalogue Foundation launch Your Paintings: Masterpieces in Schools

Associated media

Until 18 October, Your Paintings: Masterpieces in Schools is giving thousands of UK school children the opportunity to experience great art close-up when a selection of masterpieces by world-famous artists, worth an estimated £14 million, visit their schools for the day, in a project led by contemporary British artists Bob and Roberta Smith and John Byrne.

This initiative by the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF), supported by BBC Learning, will take famous paintings by Gainsborough, L. S. Lowry, Monet, Stanley Spencer and Turner and others into 27 schools across the nation in a programme that seeks to introduce young students to the nation’s rich and varied painting collection.

The project is part of Your Paintings, an initiative to increase access to the UK’s national art collection, which can be explored at www.bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings. Launched in June, 2011, the site currently shows over 200,000 oil paintings from 3,200 collection venues across the UK. Around 80% of the nation’s paintings are not on view and the vast majority had not been photographed before the Public Catalogue Foundation, a registered charity, started work in 2003. This project has already dramatically improved access to the nation’s publicly owned art.

Each school involved in Masterpieces in Schools will host its own exclusive masterpiece, revealed on the day, and will work with BBC Learning, the PCF and the lending collection to use their work of art to provide inspiration right across the school day and curriculum.

Pupils and teachers will use the art as the creative spark in lessons including History, Music, Drama and Literacy. They may create a soundtrack, work as art detectives working out the age and style of the painting or even write and perform a play based on what they see.

Each masterpiece will be accompanied by experts from the museum or gallery where it is usually displayed, who will be on hand to provide talks or expert advice during the course of the day.

Supporting these activities, the BBC website will feature curriculum-based slideshows full of ideas for using paintings in the classroom. Designed to inspire schools to use great art in teaching and learning, they are complemented by profiles of different careers in the art world. Thewebsite already includes many resources for teachers to use, including a guide to artistic styles and movements; biographies of some of the world’s greatest artists; and over 200,000 artworks with details of where to see them for real.

More information about the Masterpieces in Schools project, including examples of pieces of work undertaken by students at participating schools, will be featured on a dedicated website, which can be accessed from Your Paintings once the project is underway.

Bob and Roberta Smith said:

Putting great art in schools is a really wonderful project; all children deserve not only to appreciate and understand art, but also to have hands on first hand experience of working with materials. How exciting to have an amazing artwork in your school then to go to the art room or classroom and make something amazing yourself.

John Byrne commented:

I am so looking forward to taking part in this project. I remember how important my art lessons were to me as a child; they inspired me to draw for the other children in the playground.

When I was just ten and at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary school, we travelled to Glasgow every Saturday for six months to be show films about the great artists Samuel Palmer, William Blake, Rembrandt and more. This was a fantastic inspiration that I have remembered all my life, and hope this amazing project will inspire the next generation of artists.

Saul Nassé, Controller, BBC Learning, said:

Your Paintings is a brilliant partnership project, and we’ve brought Britain’s art collections to hundreds of thousands of people’s screens.  But we know that first hand experiences can transform a child’s learning, which is why I am so pleased to be doing Masterpieces in Schools with the Public Catalogue Foundation.  For students to have the chance to see a genuine masterpiece in the school where they make their own art is bound to inspire them to ever greater achievements.

Andrew Ellis, Director of the PCF, has said

Raising awareness of the nation’s rich collection of public art is central to the work of the PCF. Masterpieces in Schools takes great art into the classroom to encourage interest at an early age. We hope all the children will be left with the lasting memory of the day a Monet, Turner or Gainsborough came to their school.

The PCF is grateful to the BBC, and the 27 museums and schools for supporting this unique programme. We’d also like to thank our generous sponsors Hiscox.

Masterpieces in Schools is taking place in Primary and Secondary schools across the UK from 1 to 18 October.