Who painted this? #23

It's another lamb!  OK - so sometimes I lack imagination!

This time instead of being a tiny part of a huge painting, this is a study - a drawing for a painting - but by who - and when?

Who painted this? #23

How to participate in "Who painted this? #23"

PLEASE make sure you read the rules before posting a comment - and ONLY POST ON THIS BLOG what you think is the answer.

Click this link to read THE RULES for participating in this challenge (this saves having to copy them out for each post!).

In short:

• use your brains not software to find the answer
• search using words only on a database of images
• leave your answer as a comment on this blog
• if correct it will not be published until the next post - which provides the answer
• if wrong it will be published
• do not leave the answer on Facebook!
• the winner - who gets a mention and a link on/from this blog - is the first person to give me a completely correct answer for ALL the things I want to know

Who Painted This #22 - The Answer

10 Finalists for £100k Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013

Continuing the theme of museums - we now have the names of the ten museums and art galleries selected as finalists in the £100,000 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013 plus an invite to contribute a photograph for the Museum of the Year Photography Competition

Each year we celebrate the very best UK museums and galleries, rewarding and highlighting their innovation and creativity in bringing objects and collections to life.The Art Fund - About Museum of the Year

The Hepworth Wakefield.
Photo © Iwan Baan
Courtesy of the Hepworth Media Centre

The backdrop to the prize is:

• the recognised importance of museums to the UK economy - particularly in relation to local and international tourism; 
• the imperative to be non-London oriented in terms of arts funding with museums opening in areas in need of regeneration; 
• continuing cuts in funding for the arts in general and 
• the move of some responsibilities for museums to the Arts Council on 1 October 2012.  

That's a lot of competing agendas to reconcile!

The 2013 Finalists

Ten museums and galleries have been chosen by the judges to compete for the £100,000 Prize.

A review of past winners suggests that this is maybe a prize which tends to go to the museum which has reinvented itself in terms of major refurbishment, innovation or new ways of presenting collections and/or engaging with its visitors.  I'm guessing success at increasing visitor numbers and improvements in financial viability are possible criteria as well.

I'm guessing because the one thing the Art Fund website doesn't tell us is what are the criteria for the award of the Prize!  

So how does a museum know whether or not its in with a chance?

It was interesting going through the finalists to see which museums and galleries had a very clear and specific purpose - which is spelt out clearly to the public - as opposed to "things they do".  Similarly it was interesting to see which museums boasted about their visitor numbers and which buried them in documents which needed to be downloaded!  (I spent too long in a past life assessing grant applications - old habits die hard!)

For what it's worth my shortlist for the prize would include the Hepworth Wakefield, the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the William Morris Gallery - but then they're all lively and engaging museums that I've followed over the course of 2012.  That's partly because of the way they're engaging with the digital community. 

Below is a summary of the finalists with some details for those who may not know all of them:

• a link to the page on the Art Fund website which summarises why they are a finalist
• an abbreviated summary of purpose and achievement
• details of location 
• details of their website (and blog and Facebook page, Twitter, Youtube etc)

The Best Cities for Top Art Galleries and Museums (2012)

Which are the best cities to go to if you want to indulge in a spot of art gallery and museum visiting?

I've reviewed the top 100 art galleries and museums - judged by the number of visitors - in the The Art Newspaper's  Visitor Figures Survey (2012) - Exhibition & museum attendance.

On the basis of the self-reported but unaudited numbers of visitors I've identified the Top 5 Cities for the most popular Art Galleries and Museums in the World.  (Actually it's the top 5 plus 2 as there's been a howling omission from the Survey plus another city is beginning to recover its former status!)

The names are all:

• prefixed with their position in the ranking of the top 100 art galleries and museums
• plus an indication of the places gained or dropped since 2010 as a suffix

While the top four art cities remain the same, in 2011 Seoul has now replaced Tokyo in the top five following the devastating Tsunami and the aftershocks of the March earthquake off the coast of Japan. However it should be noted that rankings of museums in Tokyo had already dropped significantly in 2010.

LONDON

London - continues to have a total of eight art museums and galleries in the top 100 art galleries and museums in the world. This is significantly in excess of any other capital city. (I live in London and can get to all of these in under 45 minutes!). What's also significant for overseas tourists is how many other art museums in the UK are in the top 100 (see the end).

In 2012, all did well to maintain their positions given the adverse impact of the Olympic Games on visitors to the centre of London.

This year the National Gallery and Tate Modern swopped positions in the top 5.  The Royal Academy of Arts did particularly well on the strength of the very popular Hockney Exhibition.  By way of contrast, the Serpentine Gallery dropped out of the top 100 Art Galleries and Musuems.

The list in 2012 is:

#3.   British Museum, London (no change)

#4.   Tate Modern, London (+1)

#5.   National Gallery, London (-1)  

#11. Victoria and Albert Museum (+3)
#18. National Portrait Gallery (no change)
#26. Tate Britain (+3)
#33. Saatchi Gallery (+10)
#44. Royal Academy of Arts (+19)

Interior Atrium of the British Museum - with stone lion

PARIS

While Paris has a lot of art galleries in the top 100, it's got a much greater spread across the 100 than London.

Top 30 Art Galleries and Museums in the World in 2012

The Visitor Figures Survey (2012) - Exhibition & museum attendance conducted by The Art Newspaper provides a guide to which museums are doing well and which are experiencing a change in their fortune.

I am an extremely keen reader of the annual survey which collects the the (unaudited) visitor numbers reported by the museums to the paper. I focus on working out what has not been included in the associated survey report.

The numbers are only a guide to which are the top museums.  There are all sorts of problems (of the "apples and pears" variety) in terms of

• how the numbers are collected and which are estimated and which are accurate (For example - this year the Louvre has managed to produce a return which isn't same rounded figure that it has had had for the last three years!)
• which are for museums which charge and which are for museums which are free to enter.  

Nevertheless it's probably the best survey available of the relative popularity of the different art galleries and museums.

The survey focuses in the main on attendances at the art exhibitions and there's pages of analysis of those for people who like that sort of thing.  I'll be commenting later on what it says about exhibitions in the UK.

The Top 30 Art Galleries and Museums in the World in 2012

I've enhanced this year's listing to reflect the broad geographical area and whether performance is better or worse than last year. Following the top 30 list I have a commentary on what the list tells us this year.  The listing includes

• the number of visitors, the name of the museum, and the city that the museum is located in - as per the Art Newspaper survey
• the ranked position number and a colour code to indicate the location of the gallery or museum. This  colour coding enables you to see more easily where the the great museums are located.
• An up or down arrow to the left of the visitor numbers which enables a quick check on whether a museum is doing better or worse than last year 
• I've also indicated the new entries in the top 30 in 2012.

blue = UK
red = Europe

purple = Russia / ex USSR

orange = USA & Canada 

green = Asia

magenta = South America

light blue = Australasia

The arrows at the end relate to whether the number of visitors are up or down when compared to 2011.

▲ - UP

▼ - DOWN

The top 30 art museums and galleries in the world in 2012, based on their self-reported annual visitor numbers, are as detailed in the list below. 

Click the link in the name to find out more about the museum - in English!

Review: George Catlin: American Indian Portraits

The exhibition continues until 23 June 2013

The National Portrait Gallery is currently exhibiting a large number of portraits of native American Indians - on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

George Catlin: American Indian Portraits is an exhibition about both an artist and the various American Indian tribes he encountered as he travelled across America.

It's also a story about ethnic cleansing and an Exhibition in London a very long time ago.

It's quite unlike most portrait exhibitions as these people were not painted in a studio - they were painted in their encampments.

This is a complete one-off exhibition.  Many of the images have never been seen in the UK before and it will be a very long time (if at all) before they are ever seen again.  I've included a sample of what you can see in my review below.

I'm guessing it's an exhibition which will appeal to people of all ages but that it might be particularly interesting for families with children and those people whose families have had experience of enforced migration.

The exhibition continues until 23 June and admission is free.

I recommend this exhibition - it's both a learning curve and a very interesting experience.

About George Catlin