All the UK’s 150,000 public sculptures to go online

Martin Bailey: The Art Newspaper

Britain’s 150,000 publicly owned sculptures should all be catalogued and online by the end of next year, thanks to a project organised by Art UK. The initial tranche of 1,000 entries went online today. This will make the UK the first country in the world to have a register of all its public sculptures, most of which have never been properly photographed.

Along with European and North American sculpture, it will also cover those from other continents, such as a 12th-century Hindu relief from south Asia (Northampton Museum) and a 15th-century Benin bronze head from present-day Nigeria (Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne). The one major exclusion will be pre-AD1000 antiquities. …Read More

Pictured: Sculptures at Perth Museum and Art Gallery being photographed for Art UK’s sculpture project © Sophia Sheppard/Art UK