News Archive

York brings masters to the masses

24/06/2008

National Gallery and York Art Gallery decorate historic city with 49 canvas art prints copied from treasured collections.
It starts with George Stubbs’ ‘Whistlejacket’, the iconic portrait of the 1759 York Racecourse winner, and ends with Annibale Carracci’s life-size ‘Portrait of Monsignor Agucchi’; somewhere in the middle is one of the nation’s most loved paintings, ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable.

We’re talking about ‘The Grand Tour’, a clever advertising collaboration between the National Gallery and York Art Gallery: They’ve peppered 49 copies of their best works around the city in the hope it will encourage more people to visit the galleries to check out the real thing.

The idea first surfaced last summer when the National Gallery turned London’s West End into a huge open-air gallery putting up 44 full sized framed copies from its collection.
Advances in imaging and printing have enabled Hewlett-Packard to produce detailed copies that could easily be mistaken for the real thing.

The exhibition includes some of the best fine art from Monet to Van Gogh, Ramsay to Carracci, and its there for anyone to see who walks through the city.

A York Gallery spokesman said: “One particular recreation of an iconic National Gallery painting will bring some colourful history to the streets of York, as the original is on display just minutes away at York Gallery.
“The world-famous ‘Whistlejacket’ by George Stubbs was painting in 1762, three years after the horse enjoyed his most famous victory at York Racecourse.”

The pictures first started appearing on June 5. The last one was put up last week. Beside each print there’s a museum label giving information about the painting and the artist. Walking tours can be arranged through York Art Gallery.