Art Detective is a ground-breaking initiative that connects public collections in search of information about their oil paintings with specialists and members of the public with relevant knowledge. Whether it is to discover the name of a beautiful 1930s society hostess or the artist behind a Dutch seventeenth- century still life, Art Detective will help collections put names to unidentified sitters, places and events depicted in their paintings and the unknown artists behind works.
Art Detective addresses the serious issue of insufficient – and declining – specialist knowledge within public art collections. It is available to all 3,000 or so collections that participate in Your Paintings, the website created by the PCF in partnership with the BBC. The vast majority of these participating collections – many of which are not museums – do not have fine art curators, whilst many have lost experienced curators through funding cuts over the years.
