Electronic resources: UK’s national collection of oil paintings available on the web

The UK may well soon become the first country to have put its entire national collection of oil paintings on the web. Launched last June, the online archive Your Paintings, the fruit of a collaboration between the Public Catalogue Foundation and the BBC, has announced that it had added 40,000 paintings to the initial upload, bringing the total number of paintings available on the website to a staggering 104,000 — and PCF director Andrew Ellis is confident that all 200,000 oil paintings publically owned in the country will be uploaded by the end of 2012. To give a sense of the scale of the collection, the National Gallery in London has around 2,300 oil paintings.

“Your Paintings is a worldwide showcase of the United Kingdom’s paintings”, said Andrew Ellis, calling the results a “unique and rich learning resource”. "This is ruthlessly democratic," said Ellis. "These are the public collections, we want all the public to see it, and all the paintings are there, irrespective of quality, irrespective of condition, irrespective of where they hang”.Your Paintings is a worldwide showcase of the United Kingdom's paintings," said Andrew Ellis, the Director of the PCF, calling the results a "unique and rich learning resource.""Your Paintings is a worldwide showcase of the United Kingdom's paintings," said Andrew Ellis, the Director of the PCF, calling the results a "unique and rich learning resource.""Your Paintings is a worldwide showcase of the United Kingdom's paintings," said Andrew Ellis, the Director of the PCF, calling the results a "unique and rich learning resource."

Your Paintings includes pictures by Monet, Raphael, Van Gogh, Rubens, Caravaggio, Constable, Freud, Hogarth, and Warhol to name only a few. However the project is not called to show the public just the world heritage masterpieces, therefore a lot of these paintings can hardly be called highly professional”.   

“Until this project came along, you wouldn't have known where most of those paintings were”, said Andrew Ellis. 80 percent of the nation's paintings are not on view due to the shortage of exhibition place.  So the project is alerting people to paintings that for the most part people didn't know about.

Thousands of galleries, museums, libraries and institutions have contributed to a formidably diverse archive, searchable by artist, collection and location as well as key words. Members of the public are very much encouraged to take part in the project, and more than 5,000 of them have already helped tag the images, creating so far more than 1 million tags.

“Your Paintings” initiative was recently rewarded with the top award in the Arts and Culture category at the British Interactive Media Awards.