New project improves collection research on European painting

11 October 2004

A groundbreaking research project designed to increase access to information about Britain's public art collections has been awarded funding of over half a million pounds. The National Inventory Research Project (NIRP) - the first of its kind in the UK - aims to establish a high-quality online inventory of all post-1300 and pre-1900 non-British oil paintings in UK public collections.

NIRP was initiated by the National Gallery, London, the University of Glasgow and Birkbeck, University of London, in liaison with colleagues in other national and regional institutions. The project has so far received funds totalling £546,000 - with £328,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) Resource Enhancement scheme, £210,000 from the Getty Grant Program, and £8,200 from the Samuel H Kress Foundation. NIRP has two aims: to improve collection research in UK museums, and enhance publicly accessible information about collections.

It is estimated that there are around 22,000 non-British oil paintings (1300-1900) in UK public collections. Of these, 11,000 are already in well-researched collections, and it is proposed that this inventory data should in due course be incorporated into the website. The first phase of the project, beginning this month, will focus on the other 11,000 under-researched paintings. From 2007, a web database will be made publicly accessible through the Arts and Humanities Data Service for the benefit of art lovers, art historians and researchers, students, curators, exhibition organisers, publishers, picture researchers, the wider educational sector and the general public. Data will also inform the printed catalogues of the Public Catalogue Foundation and its eventual website of all oil paintings in UK public ownership.

Charles Saumarez Smith, Director, The National Gallery, London says: "This project will contribute significantly to our knowledge and understanding of paintings held in public collections in this country. We are delighted to have been involved in this project and are excited by the new collections research that this will uncover and make accessible to the public."

"NIRP will be a major contribution to the realisation of national and regional cultural policies on improving access to our national heritage," says Andrew Greg, Project Director, National Inventory Research Project, Department of History of Art at the University of Glasgow. "It will raise the national and international profile of many regional collections and encourage further research, as well as their use in exhibitions and publications."

Professor Francis Ames-Lewis, of Birkbeck's School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media, says: "As holder of the AHRB grant, Birkbeck will provide art-historical input to support the researchers, and will lend the School's well-known expertise in arts computing to the design and management of the inventory's database. We are excited by this opportunity to collaborate in research with the University of Glasgow and especially again with the National Gallery, with whom we have worked on various research projects in the past. We feel privileged to have the chance offered by this project to be involved in the development of a research resource that is potentially of great benefit to the art-historical community."

The project has received widespread support within the museum community in the UK. Over 130 museums and galleries have already agreed to support the project by contributing catalogue data and many have agreed to host project researchers. NIRP is seen as a potential pilot for national research and collection information dissemination activities in other fields.

The report Renaissance in the Regions, published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in 2001 highlighted the need for research into regional collections and for increased collaboration between regional museums, national museums and universities to encourage collection research and the dissemination of collection information. NIRP is a significant example of how such partnerships can further the ambitions of regional hubs, which are charged with implementing the recommendations of Renaissance in the Regions.

The National Inventory Research Project:

NIRP was created as the National Inventory of European Paintings in 2001 and is managed by a Steering Committee representing national and regional museum curators and university art collections throughout the UK to address two issues:
- to improve collection research in U.K. galleries, and
- to increase publicly accessible information about collections especially in regional UK museums.

£546,000 has so far been received in grants from the AHRB (£328,000), Getty Grant Program (£210,000), and the Samuel H Kress Foundation (£8,200) towards a research programme to last from October 2004 to March 2007. NIRP has also already benefited from over £75,000 in funding from the National Gallery. Research on regional collections has also been funded thanks to grants from the Pilgrim Trust and the Neil MacGregor Scholarship fund.

NIRP will carry out a research programme covering up to 11,000 foreign school paintings in 200 regional museums. The project will publish a publicly accessible database of these paintings and aims to add to these a further 11,000 records in 30 major collection databases (principally in national and university museums) through the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). The project is in formal partnership with History of Art departments in the University of Glasgow and Birkbeck, University of London.

Contact:
Catherine Doherty, Media and Publicity Officer
External Relations, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX
Tel 020 7631 6569
Fax 020 7631 6351
Email c.doherty@bbk.ac.uk

Top