Why did 20th Century English councils collect art?

A man and a woman standing in front of a framed painting on an easel. She is wearing a black leather jacket and a patterned scarf. He is wearing a dark blue shirt and a blue suit jacket.Image source, BBC Studios
Image caption,

Presenters Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould uncovered the secrets of a painting which was bought by a council under the Pictures for Schools scheme

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A painting bought for £35 was revealed to be by New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins on Monday and worth up to £50,000.

Robjn Cantus acquired the wrongly-attributed picture in 2019, as part of Hertfordshire County Council's sell-off of most of its 20th Century British art collection.

The art blogger and author, who lives near Cambridge, discovered its true provenance on BBC One's Fake or Fortune.

But why would a council buy works by artists such as Henry Moore and LS Lowry n the first place? The BBC has been finding out.

A close-up of an impressionistic landscape, painted in varies shades of green and flashes of yellow. It shows a hillside, partly held up by a brick wall, and a dark opening into the hill.Image source, Robjn Cantus
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Robjn Cantus did not want the work but bought it with another he did want

It all goes back to a scheme called Pictures for Schools, set up in the wake of World War Two and the brainchild of painter and teacher Nan Youngman (1906 to 1995).

"The idea was to give children artwork that was inspiring to look at," said Mr Cantus, author of Nan Youngman & Pictures for Schools.

"Before Nan, a classroom would be full of sepia reproductions of paintings, from the National Gallery - or posters given out by the Post Office as empirical propaganda - Nan wanted paintings by living artists in the schools. "

In 1945, she was chairman of the Society of Education through Arts and she initiated a series of exhibitions of contemporary art for sale at affordable prices to education authorities.

She called these exhibitions Pictures for Schools.

Who was Nan Youngman?

A black and white photo of Nan Youngman. She is in profile and slightly turning to the right so both her eyes can be seen. She has a relaxed face and short sleek hair, tucked behind her ear. She is wearing a dark top. Image source, Ramsay & Muspratt
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The visionary artist and teacher behind Pictures for Schools was Nan Youngman

Ms Youngman trained as an artist at the Slade School of Art before qualifying as a teacher.

She divided her time between teaching and art, exhibiting in London galleries throughout the 1930s, before moving to Cambridgeshire with her partner, sculptor Betty Rea.

In 1944, she became the county's art adviser under the education pioneer Henry Morris, the founder of the village college secondary school system, a great supporter of the art scheme.

Mr Cantus said she also put on "remarkably successful" post-war exhibitions.

"She was an incredible artist as well as a visionary for Pictures of Schools, but because she's a woman, her work is downplayed," he added.

How did the scheme work?

A brightly coloured painting of a blue tractor in a shed. The wall inside the shed is brown and the external wall if bright blue while the door is open on the left and is brown. Image source, Robjn Cantus/Cambridgeshire PFS
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A painting of a tractor by Nick Lyons could be used in a classroom to educate children about agriculture and machinery as well developing an artistic eye

Each county's library service stored the artwork - which could be paintings, drawings, sculptures or textiles - and then loaned them out to schools on rotation.

Mr Cantus said the idea was "every term, there would be something fresh to look at".

"The school could use a painting of, for example, a tractor, to teach about farming, the weather, machinery - or art," he said.

The scheme caught on and collections of art to lend to schools, external were established by many authorities, including Rochdale, Manchester, Carlisle, Southend, Great Yarmouth, Derbyshire, Lancashire, the West Riding, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

Mr Cantus said: "Most of the children would never have had the opportunity to go to museums, there were no school trips, so the idea was to bring museum-quality art to schools.

How did it start?

A picture by C Brooke showing two white cats against a deep blue background. The cat on the left is sitting up, with its head down and its tail around its front paws. The second cat is behind it to the right and is curled up on a red cushion on top of a wicker basket. Image source, Robjn Cantus/Derbyshire PFS
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Behind the scheme was a utopian post-war idea about improving children's lives in different ways, said Mr Cantus

The first county to participate in the scheme was Cambridgeshire, which was the second poorest county in England, external at the time.

Cambridgeshire's first purchase was by LS Lowry, best known for his urban landscapes peopled with "matchstick men", external - the council sold it for £541,250 in 2009.

Meanwhile, Hertfordshire County Council commissioned Henry Moore to create a piece called Family Group for one of its schools in Stevenage.

Mr Cantus said: "Some of the artists would lower their fees so that local authorities would be able to afford the works, but many of the works were cheaper than normal exhibitions as the artists were not being charged the same fees as they would if they were exhibiting in a commercial gallery."

At its peak, Cambridgeshire County Council owned about 400 artworks, while Hertfordshire owned nearly 2,000 before it sold off the majority of its collection.

What is its legacy?

A painting by Nan Youngman of Llanfrothen in Wales. It is slightly up a hillside with dark green trees on the right, a black obelisk in the foreground, beyond it are shrubs and trees and falling away from that are fields in shades of soft green and pink. Image source, CJ & AB Rea/Nan Youngman Estate
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Ms Youngman continued to paint alongside her career as an educator

It now seems remarkable that so many local authorities had art advisers with budgets to buy contemporary art.

The last Pictures for Schools exhibition was in held in1969, but some authorities - including Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire - continued to buy works until about 2000.

Mr Cantus said the ability to move the works around to schools became more of a problem, as did storage, restoration and how to insure them.

And as council budgets were slashed the works, many seen as old-fashioned, ceased to be school resources and became assets for sale to pay for essential services.

Perhaps the idea of buying works of art by living artists and lending them to schools could only have arisen in "that post-war period of experimentation", he continued.

"Everyone says how sad the scheme stopped, but everyone agrees, that while it's a wonderful idea, it would be challenging to implement today."

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