‘We’ve just scratched the surface’: Mission to digitize UK public art reaches 1 million shares | Art and design

From Rodin’s bronze statue of the naked Eve outside the Nando’s store in Harlow to more than 6,000 artworks by JMW Turner, to a crumpled piece of A4 paper owned by the Manchester Art Gallery, the UK’s public art collection is a fascinating and diverse thing.

It’s huge, as demonstrated by the charity Art UK, which announced it had reached one million works of art in its database and appointed a new chairman who said: “We’ve only scratched the surface.”

Ben Teret, the former UK government design director, has been announced as the new chair of a charity celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Art UK began with the mission of digitally cataloging UK paintings. Over the years it has expanded to include drawings, watercolours, ceramics, sculptures, stained glass, signage, architectural drawings and street murals.

It’s a huge, encyclopedic, and entertaining resource that lends itself to going down any number of rabbit holes. Type the word ‘mosquito’, for example, and you’ll discover 53 listings, ranging from large-scale art drawings of actual mosquitoes, to paintings of de Havilland Mosquito aircraft from World War II, to a statue in a North Yorkshire forest celebrating the Women’s Timber Corps – the loggers – who cut and sawed the timber used to make aircraft.

Or look up Martin Creed, the artist who won the Turner Prize for his work Where the Lights Turn on and Off in a Room, and you’ll find 24 of his works in public collections, including Manchester’s Crumpled Paper Ball.

The database is a great resource and should be better known, Teret said. “It’s great,” he said. “It’s one of those ideas that you’re glad you have, because if it didn’t exist, you’d think someone should.

“One of my jobs as chair is to help raise this profile, because perhaps not enough people hear about it. It’s the digitization of all public art in the UK, and there’s a really visible aspect of that, which is the Tate and places like that.”

“But there are a lot of other places like hospitals and council buildings…places like that are public and have amazing works of art that people can’t see or don’t know are there.”

The database highlights how many artworks are never seen because they are in storage, Teret said.

Teret, who was appointed central bank by the king last week, led the design team that launched gov.uk, and is chief executive and co-founder of consultancy Public Digital.

He said his childhood experiences fueled his passion for expanding access to arts and design. “I grew up in a small village in Wiltshire,” he said. “There were no museums, there were no art galleries, and access to that kind of stuff was really difficult. I went to a comprehensive school with a great art teacher and a great art department, but you had to push yourself a lot to learn about these things.”

He believes it is even more difficult for children today: “Creative education in public schools has been destroyed.”

There is also evidence that interacting with the database encourages people to visit exhibitions in person.

Recent additions to the database, which have helped it reach the millionth mark, include a 1951 stencil by Henri Matisse at Lancaster University; Gwen John’s Flower Painting at the National Museum Cardiff; A painting of the Venice Canal by Mary Haggarty in the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath; and a picture titled Reverie by David Foggie at the University of Dundee.

Art UK’s board said it looked forward to Teret’s fresh ideas and insights to help it “reach new audiences, embrace new technologies and creative opportunities, and build its income base, international profile and following”.

Teret said he remains convinced that the Internet is a force for good. “It’s hard to believe that these days. It’s hard to hold on to that belief. But it still is. I think in the world there’s still net positivity. And that’s just a really nice example of where the Internet does well.”