Since we last reported on the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) in an Editorial in 2005,1 the project of making available a photographic record of the entire national collection of paintings in public ownership has progressed with astonishing momentum.2  Museums make up the majority of participating collections, but it also includes paintings held by universities, hospitals, town halls, local libraries and other civic buildings, whose collections were often entirely uncatalogued and unphotographed. Founded in 2003 by Fred Hohler, the Public Catalogue Foundation is largely privately funded, the biggest benefactor being the Monument Trust, and with only some fifteen per cent of funding coming from the public sector. At its inception in 2003 it must have felt like the start of a well-nigh impossible task, but the project is a success: today there is a series of region-by-region illustrated catalogues numbering thirty-five volumes. It should also be added that the project is unique: no other country has attempted anything like it.

Early on it was acknowledged that the undertaking could only reach its full potential if it were also placed online to benefit both specialists and the general public. To this end the PCF entered into a partnership with the BBC, on whose website Your Paintings is now hosted.3 Eventually providing access to all the available data and images, it was launched in June 2011 with an initial batch of 63,000 works. When this Editorial goes to press, this number will have more than doubled to 145,000, the latest batches in May including all the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the National Museum Wales, Cardiff, as well as the more than nine hundred works in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. At the project’s completion in December of this year there will be some 207,000 paintings online, by then also including more than 12,000 works in the care of the National Trust, which represents the largest single set in the entire project. By the end of this year some 3,000 collections will have participated, with works by almost 40,000 artists.

While many may still prefer to browse through the printed catalogues, with such dazzling numbers there is no denying that online access offers tremendous possibilities. In addition to the image itself, currently the data consists of the bare minimum as supplied by the various institutions, not exceeding the name of the artist; title; date; support, medium and dimensions; inventory number; and method of acquisition, although there is always a link if more detailed information is available on the website of the relevant institution itself. While such basic data is very useful, if only because in many cases they were previously unavailable, there is an obvious need for more comprehensive data and more sophisticated classification, but because of the sheer size of the project, an alternative for traditional cataloguing methods had to be found. The chosen method is that of crowd-sourcing, as pioneered by the Astrophysics Department at the University of Oxford to classify galaxies. The public is invited to ‘tag’ paintings using subjects and categories, which can either be chosen from extensive authority lists or entered as free terms as the user sees fit. When there is a statistically significant number of similar tags, they come up for consideration to be included in the public database. Crowd-sourcing has been very successful in the exact sciences, where tags often consist of readily verifiable data. It is perhaps less straightforward in this particular case; its success will rely upon a high level of participation and rigorous quality control.

Many institutions participating in the PCF are small ones whose core function has little to do with their collections and who do not have staff with the relevant expertise or knowledge. Smaller museums may have some curatorial staff but very limited resources, exacerbated by recent cuts in funding. The PCF also found that if expertise is minimal or non-existent, there is often little idea of where to turn for help. It is with this in mind that it proposes to set up and manage an Oil Paintings Experts Network (OPEN), aimed at providing a framework that connects requests for assistance with a network of pro bono experts from both the public and private sectors. In order to gain a better idea of how OPEN might function, the PCF invited delegates from various institutions (small and large, national and regional museums; universities; a hospital and a library; and the art trade) to speak at a conference held at the National Gallery, London, on 25th April. It became clear during the day that most agreed that, rather than an entirely ‘open’ system as we know it from various online forums or the so-called wiki principle used by Wikipedia, there is a need for authoritatively monitored information. To this end ‘expert cells’, each covering a specific field, would have to be created. In the proposed set-up, the PCF would function as a filter in this digital network, deciding to whom queries should go.

There is one particular danger in all of this. It is certainly commendable that solutions are sought for collections that have no in-house expertise, but a specialist network of pro bono experts managed by a largely privately funded organisation to help regional museums short on expertise may also lead to a perception that publicly funded in-house expertise is perhaps no longer needed. This could be music to the ears of national and local policymakers intent on implementing further cuts. Indeed, the possibility of smaller museums becoming dormant would add a nice refrain to this already agreeable music, as they can be closed down. There remains a pressing need for local curators and local expertise; it was rightly remarked during the conference proceedings that, for OPEN to function fully, the responsibility for research, and thus the questions that may be put to OPEN, should remain squarely with those smaller museums themselves. It is crucial that the PCF’s noble intentions will not be used as an excuse by those with less altruistic objectives. Although we happily endorse the PCF’s accomplishments and aims for the future, local or national government should not be allowed to use its existence as a pretext to abandon its own responsibilities.

There is one particular danger in all of this. It is certainly commendable that solutions are sought for collections that have no in-house expertise, but a specialist network of pro bono experts managed by a largely privately funded organisation to help regional museums short on expertise may also lead to a perception that publicly funded in-house expertise is perhaps no longer needed. This could be music to the ears of national and local policymakers intent on implementing further cuts. Indeed, the possibility of smaller museums becoming dormant would add a nice refrain to this already agreeable music, as they can be closed down. There remains a pressing need for local curators and local expertise; it was rightly remarked during the conference proceedings that, for OPEN to function fully, the responsibility for research, and thus the questions that may be put to OPEN, should remain squarely with those smaller museums themselves. It is crucial that the PCF’s noble intentions will not be used as an excuse by those with less altruistic objectives. Although we happily endorse the PCF’s accomplishments and aims for the future, local or national government should not be allowed to use its existence as a pretext to abandon its own responsibilities.

1    The Burlington Magazine 147 (2005), p.589, where more information can also be found on the National Inventory of Continental European paintings, a similar project based at the University of Glasgow, whose database will eventually be merged with that of the PCF.
2    The PCF consistently uses the term ‘oil paintings’, although in fact the project also includes paintings in other media such as tempera or acrylic, as well as works in mixed media.
3    www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings.