Art UK

The Public Catalogue Foundation

Abbreviation	PCF
Formation	2003
Type	Charity
Purpose	To create a complete record of the national collection of oil, tempera and acrylic paintings in public ownership and make that accessible to the public.
Location	Covent Garden, London
Region served	United Kingdom
Website	www.thepcf.org.uk

The Public Catalogue Foundation, a registered charity, has digitised the UK's complete collection of oil paintings in public ownership and made the paintings viewable by the public through a series of affordable catalogues and, in partnership with the BBC, the Your Paintings website. The high quality digital files, however, have not been made available to the public, and paintings on the BBC site can only be 'saved' as a 'personal collection' on the site, not downloaded.

The catalogues and website allow readers to see a colour illustration and description of every painting in the UK's national collection. This information has significant educational benefits and constitutes the building blocks for later art historical research. Revenue from catalogue sales made by collections will be dedicated to the conservation and restoration of oil paintings in their care.

In January 2009 a partnership with the BBC was announced with the aim to place the entire catalogue of publicly owned oil paintings online by 2012. On 4 October 2012 it was announced that the project had indeed photographed every painting that it intended to and all 210,000 would shortly be available.

Catalogue series

Of the 210,000 oil paintings in public ownership in the UK, around 80% are not on public view. Many are held in storage or civic buildings without routine public access. At the same time, many of these collections have incomplete cataloguing records; very few have more than a small proportion of their paintings photographed, and hardly any collection has a complete illustrated catalogue of its oil paintings in book form or online. Since 2003, The Public Catalogue Foundation has been working to rectify this through a series of colour catalogues.

The Oil Paintings in Public Ownership series is being published by The PCF mainly on a county-by-county basis. A volume brings together from a county all the oil, acrylic and tempera paintings in museum collections, together with paintings held in civic buildings such as town halls, libraries, universities, hospitals and fire stations. Each county catalogue contains a colour photograph and basic information about each painting. All paintings are reproduced regardless of quality or condition.

The PCF’s first catalogue was published in June 2004. Since then 56 catalogues have been printed (see Publications). There will eventually be 86 catalogues in the series covering the whole of the UK, and the series is expected to be completed in 2013.

Your Paintings

The Public Catalogue Foundation worked with the BBC to put all of the UK's publicly owned oil paintings online, in a section of the BBC website, Your Paintings, launched in 2011. The PCF completed the digitisation of the entire national collection and celebrated their success in February 2013. An innovative crowdsourcing project, Your Paintings Tagger, also went online in 2011, to generate the metadata necessary to make Your Paintings fully searchable.

In March 2013 the BBC revealed that an unknown painting by Anthony van Dyck had been discovered because of the Your Paintings web site. The painting of Olivia, wife of Endymion Porter had been discovered on-line and although it was previously thought it to be in the style of the Van Dyck, experts now agreed that the painting was an unknown original. Olivia, the subject of the painting, who died in 1663 was a lady-in-waiting to Queen consort Henrietta Maria. She had married Endymion Porter who was a patron of Anthony van Dyck. A Culture Show TV programme noted that these paintings had not previously been published and it was the Your Paintings web site that had allowed this attribution.

Publications

Catalogues published to date include:

• Oil paintings in public ownership in West Yorkshire: Leeds,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Lucy Ellis, 2004, ISBN 9781904931003
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Kent,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2004 ISBN 9781904931027
• Oil paintings in public ownership in West Sussex,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2005, ISBN 9781904931041
• Oil paintings in public ownership in London: The Slade School of Fine Art & University College London Art Collections,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2005, ISBN 9781904931065
• Oil paintings in public ownership in East Sussex,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2005, ISBN 9781904931089
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Suffolk,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, Alan Grundy, 2005, ISBN 9781904931102
• Oil paintings in public ownership in North Yorkshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, Lucy Denton, Sally Pelham, 2006, ISBN 9781904931225
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Cambridgeshire: The Fitzwilliam Museum,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2006, ISBN 9781904931126
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Surrey,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Stella Sharp, Sonia Roe, 2006, ISBN 9781904931249
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Norfolk,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2006, ISBN 9781904931201
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Essex,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2007, ISBN 9781904931140
• Oil paintings in public ownership in the Imperial War Museum,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andy Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2006, ISBN 9781904931287
• Oil paintings in public ownership in the Victoria and Albert Museum,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2008, ISBN 9781904931409
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Hampshire: Southampton & the Isle of Wight,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2007, ISBN 9781904931188
• Hampshire (excluding Southampton): Oil paintings in public ownership in Hampshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, Elizabeth Vickers, 2007, ISBN 9781904931164
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly: under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, Steve Tanner, 2007, ISBN 9781904931317
• West Yorkshire (excluding Leeds):Oil paintings in public ownership in West Yorkshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2007, ISBN 9781904931263
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Staffordshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2007, ISBN 9781904931348
• Oil paintings in public ownership in the Government Art Collection,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2007
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Birmingham,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2008, ISBN 9781904931386
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Nottinghamshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, Angharad Jones, 2008, ISBN 9781904931744
• Oil paintings in public ownership in County Durham,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, Sally Pelham, 2008, ISBN 9781904931485
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the City of London,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2008, ISBN 9781904931775
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Hertfordshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2008, ISBN 9781904931355
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Tyne & Wear Museums,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2008
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Northumberland, Tees Valley & Tyne and Wear,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2009, ISBN 9781904931379
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Warwickshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2009, ISBN 9781904931546
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Herefordshire, Worcestershire & Shropshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2009, ISBN 9781904931782
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Sonia Roe, 2009, ISBN 9781904931362
• Oil paintings in public ownership in Derbyshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, John Bather, 2009, ISBN 9781904931508
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Dorset,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Venetia Ross Skinner, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2009, ISBN 9781904931478
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Somerset,The Public Catalogue Foundation, Malcolm V. L. Pearce, Andrew Ellis, Sonia Roe, 2011, ISBN 9781904931522
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership: In Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2010, ISBN 9781904931461
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in East Riding of Yorkshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2012, ISBN 9781904931775
• Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Gloucestershire & Wiltshire,The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2012, ISBN 9781904931560

Revenues generated from catalogue sales at participating collections is nearly all used for painting restoration and gallery education. The project's overall income is used to help fund upcoming catalogues, as most funding is generated from private donations.

Board of trustees

• Professor David Ekserdjian
• George Entwistle
• Charles Gregson (Chairman)
• Dr Fred Hohler (Founder and Honorary Trustee)
• Alex Morrison
• Richard Roundell
• Marc Sands
• Dr Charles Saumarez Smith
• Graham Southern
• Alison Watt OBE

External links

• The Public Catalogue Foundation
• BBC Your Paintings
• Your Paintings Tagger
• "Art UK, registered charity no. 1096185". Charity Commission for England and Wales.