Angus College

College Paintings Go Online.

For the first time ever, Angus College is displaying all of its art collection on line as part of the “Your Paintings celebration”. The College is presenting a total of 21 paintings, including National Art Competition winners such as “Broken Shell” by Frances Law and “Thick Air” by Eleanor Jones-Chesney.

The event is part of a nationwide series of activities to celebrate the completion of “Your Paintings”, a website for the entire UK national collection of oil paintings created by the BBC in partnership with the Public Catalogue Foundation. All 211,861 paintings are now available to view online at: bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings

Held in over 3,000 galleries, museums and other civic buildings around the country, these paintings span over 600 years of art history – arguably the greatest national collection of its kind in the world. Due to limitations of exhibition space, 80% of these works are normally held in storage and not easily visible to the people who own them – the UK public.

Angus College Art lecturer, Jill Taylor says:

“It’s a fantastic idea to have these collections on record like this and it is a fabulous resource for students to track artists and their works around the country. We hope to be adding to our collection all the time.”

The Your Paintings website features paintings from 441 museums, galleries and public buildings in Scotland.

In addition, we are inviting you to ‘tag’ paintings on our local collections on the website. This data will allow future users of the “ Your Paintings” website to easily find paintings by subjects, themes and events that interest them in our region. The tagging process doesn’t require expert knowledge, but those with specialist information on paintings in the collection are invited to contact the Public Catalogue Foundation.

Andrew Ellis from the Public Catalogue Foundation said:

‘No other country has ever embarked on such a project to make accessible online its entire collection of oil paintings. The result is an extraordinary rich and varied virtual gallery of paintings with styles and subject matters to suit all tastes and interests. Anyone can now contribute to the project by tagging paintings so that the paintings can be searched in future. Tagging is easy, fun and, for many, addictive!’

Saul Nasse, Controller from BBC Learning said:

‘The idea that we could put on virtual display all the UK’s paintings was madly ambitious, but thanks to a brilliant partnership with the PCF, we’ve realised that ambition. Your Paintings is a thing of beauty and I’m hoping the events that we’re rolling out right across the country are going to inspire thousands more people to learn about these wonderful paintings.’

Taken together, this collection of 211,861 paintings presents an unparalleled insight into the nation’s culture and history. Paintings by over 37,000 artists are on the Your Paintings website, including Old Masters and works by leading British artists. Just fewer than 30,000 paintings do not have firm artist attributions, leaving the possibility of important discoveries in years to come.

To see and tag Your Paintings and find out more about our event and participating galleries, museums and public buildings in Angus please visit: bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings

ENDS