ACC work by Phillip King loaned to Wakefield school in Art UK Project

15 June 2018

 

As part of Art UK’s latest take on the Masterpieces in Schools initiative, the Arts Council Collection loaned Phillip King’s Point X to Pinders Primary School in Wakefield. The ACC were the first collection in the project to loan a sculpture for the day.

 

The project will see 70,000 school children from 125 schools the length and breadth of the UK experience world class works of art in their classrooms as part of the largest ever sculpture project undertaken in Britain.

Andrew Ellis, Art UK Director, said;

Masterpieces in Schools was such a huge success back in 2013, so obviously we wanted to do something similar again, but this time give even more children the opportunity to interact with great art. Our sculpture in school’s initiative will be five times bigger – and hopefully even more rewarding – than what we achieved last time round.”

The first loan took place this week to Pinders Primary School in Wakefield. In early June, 30 pupils from Year 3 visited the Arts Council Collection Sculpture Centre at Longside, which is located within the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. After seeing the collection and talking to staff, together they picked Phillip King’s 1965 sculpture Point X to be the one to visit their school.

Share

Natalie Rudd, Senior Curator, Arts Council Collection said;

“The Arts Council Collection remit is to be seen as widely as possible and so taking artworks into schools through the Art UK scheme is the perfect way to extend our reach to our youngest of audiences. We were particularly impressed by how thoughtful the students were when choosing the artwork that would be coming into their school. They considered the fact that the work had to have impact, would need to be easily seen by up to 30 children at any one time and considered what would be appealing to both nursery school pupils and parents and governors. The students were given a wide selection of works to choose from but they felt that Point X by Philip King would be well received and understood on many levels by their student peers.”

On 14 June, Point X came to Pinders Primary for the day and was on display in the school hall. Exactly which sculpture was visiting had been kept secret by Year 3 and was revealed to the rest of the school on arrival. All 240 pupils in the school had a chance to see the artwork and each class took part in a workshop led by the Arts Council Collection’s Natalie Rudd, Senior Curator and Natalie Walton, Learning and Outreach Manager, and had the chance to ask lots of questions.  

The Arts Council Collection : ACC work by Phillip King loaned to Wakefield school in Art UK Project
The Arts Council Collection : ACC work by Phillip King loaned to Wakefield school in Art UK Project

The pupils at Pinders Primary clearly enjoyed their day -“I felt special and proud to help choose the artwork for the other kids. It felt like we got to be teachers” said one pupil; another added “I liked the sculpture because I have never seen one that big before.” There were also comments such as “Today has made me want to do more art.”

Pinders Primary Headteacher Lorna Kemplay said;

What a fantastic opportunity to share national art works with our children. A very well organised team have liaised with school in order to bring the world of Sculpture literally to our door. Art is a very important part of children’s education and needs to be kept alive and real. In the words of Picasso ‘Every child is an artist’."

The Masterpieces in Schools programme is being made possible thanks to generous grants from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Read more about the Arts Council Collection and ArtUK partnership here.

Join the conversation online using #ArtUKsculptureproject.

Close
Artists
Artworks
Exhibitions
Articles
Other

The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.