A successor to the Your Paintings website, which showed the UK’s national collection of more than 200,000 oil paintings, has been launched.
Art UK is a shared platform that showcases public collections across the UK.
Your Paintings, a website that featured the UK’s national collection of more than 200,000 oil paintings, was built by the BBC in partnership with the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF), which has adopted Art UK as its operating name. Art UK is operated by the PCF on behalf of some 3,000 public art collections across the UK.
The Art UK platform provides a single digital infrastructure for all the UK’s art, searchable by artist, artwork or theme.
“Art UK is our new operating name, because we realised that the name Public Catalogue Foundation suggested everything we’re not: attached to the state, boring, and immensely rich,” said Andrew Ellis, the director of Art UK. “Art UK does what it says on the tin. We are democratising access to the UK’s public art collection.”
Your Paintings asked members of the public to tag artworks with themes and subjects addressed in works. Art UK has worked with Oxford University to progress the tagging project by making image recognition software that recognises themes in paintings automatically, increasing the number of searchable subjects in artworks.
Your Paintings received about 300,000 unique visitors each month, of which 40% came from overseas.
"No other country has online access to such an extensive database of paintings as is provided by Art UK," said Gabriele Finaldi, director of London’s National Gallery. “That makes it unique in an international context. I am delighted that the National Gallery’s paintings are available and searchable in this way, alongside so many others from British collections.”
Art UK is working with 500 partner collections across the UK which can get different levels of benefit depending on their level of membership. Organisations can put their own exhibitions online and add items they produce to the Art UK shop. All the money raised from those sales will go back to the institutions that produced the merchandise.
“The new Art UK website is a stunning example of how digital technology can make art available for everyone to enjoy," said Peter Bazalgette, the chairman of Arts Council England. "And for those inspired, it tells you which paintings you can see at your own local museum or art gallery.”
The Heritage Lottery Fund has earmarked a further £2.8m for the next Art UK initiative: digitising the nation’s sculpture.
Art UK is a shared platform that showcases public collections across the UK.
Your Paintings, a website that featured the UK’s national collection of more than 200,000 oil paintings, was built by the BBC in partnership with the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF), which has adopted Art UK as its operating name. Art UK is operated by the PCF on behalf of some 3,000 public art collections across the UK.
The Art UK platform provides a single digital infrastructure for all the UK’s art, searchable by artist, artwork or theme.
“Art UK is our new operating name, because we realised that the name Public Catalogue Foundation suggested everything we’re not: attached to the state, boring, and immensely rich,” said Andrew Ellis, the director of Art UK. “Art UK does what it says on the tin. We are democratising access to the UK’s public art collection.”
Your Paintings asked members of the public to tag artworks with themes and subjects addressed in works. Art UK has worked with Oxford University to progress the tagging project by making image recognition software that recognises themes in paintings automatically, increasing the number of searchable subjects in artworks.
Your Paintings received about 300,000 unique visitors each month, of which 40% came from overseas.
"No other country has online access to such an extensive database of paintings as is provided by Art UK," said Gabriele Finaldi, director of London’s National Gallery. “That makes it unique in an international context. I am delighted that the National Gallery’s paintings are available and searchable in this way, alongside so many others from British collections.”
Art UK is working with 500 partner collections across the UK which can get different levels of benefit depending on their level of membership. Organisations can put their own exhibitions online and add items they produce to the Art UK shop. All the money raised from those sales will go back to the institutions that produced the merchandise.
“The new Art UK website is a stunning example of how digital technology can make art available for everyone to enjoy," said Peter Bazalgette, the chairman of Arts Council England. "And for those inspired, it tells you which paintings you can see at your own local museum or art gallery.”
The Heritage Lottery Fund has earmarked a further £2.8m for the next Art UK initiative: digitising the nation’s sculpture.
