I tried to get a split across the different categories of art on Facebook. I also decided to leave out specific museums and art galleries and art societies as it seemed invidious to choose!
So here is my final choice. You can see what other people chose by looking at the tag #ArtOnFacebook2014
Art News
The Art Newspaper
https://www.facebook.com/theartnewspaperThe Facebook Page for The Art Newspaper is one of my favourite places for alerting me to what's going on in the wider art economy / context.
It links to articles on its website - which in turn are derived from articles in the actual newspaper - except some are just online!
The Guardian Culture
https://www.facebook.com/guardiancultureOne of my favourite sites is Guardian Arts and Design section - which gets a teeny bit lost within Guardian culture. I do wish they'd give it a feed all to itself! Here's an example of the sort of post I like - it's all about the National Gallery in London - National Gallery review – Frederick Wiseman focuses on the minutiae
Hyperallergic
https://www.facebook.com/hyperallergic
Hyperallergic is one of the Facebook Pages I like - for consciousness raising posts like:
- this one Deaccessioning Crisis Has UK Museums Group Contemplating Stricter Guidelines
- ...and this one - Penguin Group Targets Artist Over Satirical Art Book - even though Hyperallergic's repeat of this post dated March 2014 failed to highlight the fact that Parody laws came into effect in the UK on 1 October 2014!
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| Art Fund Facebook Page Photos |
The Art Fund
https://www.facebook.com/theartfund
This is a wonderful site for a wonderful organisation which supports museums and galleries and helps them to buy works of art - and allows me as a subscribing member to see them at reduced rates! It also has one of the best managed and best written pages relating to exhibitions, art galleries and museums. It works hard at arousing interest and sharing what's happening around the country.
Art Materials
Jackson's Art Supplies
https://www.facebook.com/JacksonsArt
I'm a fan of suppliers of art materials and Jackson's Art Supplies - based in Stoke Newington has one of the best pages. It's closely tied into their blog and regularly features interviews with artists, artwork by artists who are clients as well as highlighting lots of different aspects of art supplies which are new, changed and/or are worth highlighting.
Most of all it's INFORMATIVE and you don't feel like you're being hitover the head by the marketing end of what is a commercial operation. I'll be interested to see how it tackles the new rules re Facebook for 2015 - I'm guessing they won't need to change much.
I can also recommend their blog http://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/ which is also one of my regular reads often via the links which pop up on this Facebook Page.
Unison Colour Soft Pastels
https://www.facebook.com/unisoncolour
I regularly "tune in" to the Facebook Page to get my dose of colour. Plus all those lovely pastels make me want to get mine out!
Artists
Botanical Artists Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/botanicalartists/
The Botanical Artists Group on Facebook is now huge ( joined when it had much less than 1,000 members). There is a very high standard of art being posted by its members. What marks it out as well as a good place for art on Facebook is the very high quality of the moderation (no spam or spammers here!) and the tremendous helpful and collegiate nature of the posting. The group is closed - and I've learned over time that this tends to be the best way of operating a group of like minds.
Ester Roi
https://www.facebook.com/esterroiart
Ester Roi is an artist who I know well. Except she's not just an artist she's also an inventor - and she has mastered the art of promoting her art of Facebook. Check out the number of likes for her page - and how many people are talking about her page.
Sophie Ploeg Art
https://www.facebook.com/sophieploegart
I've been following Sophie Ploeg for a while. Sophie is great at spotting interesting exhibitions about the type of art she is interested in and for giving you close up details plus showing you all the different ways she gets her art out and about - which this year included an award-winning display at the National Portrait Gallery. We just need to persuade her to move some of the interesting discussions on her account over to her Facebook Page!
Robin Purcell Paints
https://www.facebook.com/robinpurcellpaints
I just LOVE looking at the watercolours painted by Robin Purcell. I want to know how to paint like this - and keep thinking that if I stare at her paintings for long enough I'll be able to work out how.
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| some of the images on Robin Purcell Paints Facebook Page - now and again we get a demo of how it's done! |
Alan Woollett Art
https://www.facebook.com/alanwoollettbirdart
Alan's approach to sharing his art - before, during, on its way to the customer, in exhibitions and after it's been hung in its new home certainly has a lot of fans. That and the fact he's drawing birds! What I find fascinating is Alan has neither blog nor website and I rather suspect a lot of his art sells before it's even finished!
[OK - so for those who are counting - there are in fact 11 Pages. I told you there were lots of good pages out there and it was very difficult to choose - plus I lost count!]
