Pictures for Schools: Forgotten but not Quite Gone

After the Second World War, when the country was bombed, broken and broke, education and art were at the forefront of rebuilding Britain.

The education system faced considerable challenges. The raising of the school leaving age necessitated thousands of new teachers. Schools needed to expand or be rebuilt as classes were held in temporary huts outside crumbling Victorian or war-damaged buildings. This resulted in a school building boom which made use of new materials and construction techniques. The new developments in school architecture are widely regarded as being not just expedient but innovative, and have been the subject of several detailed studies. The murals and other site-specific artworks which were often commissioned alongside these schools have also enjoyed renewed interest in recent years.

What has been less well-documented is a forgotten post-war ideal which argued not just for the transformation of the buildings in which learning took place, but for creativity and art to be central to children’s lives and educational experience. One scheme aimed to put this into practice by helping children to grow up with art. Pictures for Schools hoped to develop a new culture of patronage among educational establishments. It sold contemporary paintings, sculptures, textiles and prints at prices affordable to educational buyers, to be displayed in schools and experienced by children first-hand and close-up. It was thought that this would not only stimulate children’s own creative expression but encourage them to see art as part of their everyday lives and experiences and view it as something they could enjoy in their own leisure time once they had left school.

Pictures for Schools took place for the first time in 1947 at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Exhibition space was difficult to find. Galleries had shut during the war and their collections had been transferred to safe spaces. For several years, the annual Pictures for Schools exhibitions flitted between various London venues – the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial Institute – before settling for several years at Whitechapel Gallery and ending up at the Royal Academy’s Diploma Galleries, where it took place for the last time in 1969. The scheme was widely publicised – Pictures for Schools was reported in the local, national and specialist press, and was featured on BBC radio programmes including Children’s Hour, whose in-house art critic did a detailed feature on the show.

Some of the artists who sold work through Pictures for Schools were well-known, including LS Lowry and Edward Bawden, but many Pictures for Schools artists’ names are now long-forgotten. Despite their obscurity, many have fascinating stories and lived lives closely intertwined with other developments in education and art, from Mass Observation and war art to documentary film-making. Many artists were young; the exhibitions provided an outlet and income for students and recent graduates. Also exhibiting were tutors from prestigious London art schools. Others are not household names but undertook important public commissions in the post-war period. These include Steven Sykes, whose decorative musical reliefs flank the stage at New Century Hall, inside the Co-operative’s former Manchester headquarters, New Century House, and whose jewelled Gesthemane Chapel glimmers opulently in Coventry Cathedral.

The exhibitions weren’t avant-garde, showing more representational than abstract work and displaying little in the way of new artistic developments. Artworks brought attention to corners of Britain that seem insignificant, unremarkable or forgettable. Several of the artists submitting work to Pictures for Schools had been involved in initiatives such as Recording Britain, a wartime project to record places at risk of disappearing. Pictures for Schools continued to offer a snapshot of the everyday places and activities of the post-war period. Sometimes these erred towards the twee or sentimental, but other artists highlighted industrial scenery and landscapes in stark, surprising and striking ways, from George Chapman’s sloping Welsh streets to JK Long’s ominously orange-hued, near-empty scenes.

Despite the challenges they faced, local education authorities and schools found money to buy artworks. Education committees in towns and cities all over the country enthusiastically travelled to the Pictures for Schools exhibitions, sometimes with groups of children. Collections of art to lend to schools were established in towns, cities and counties including Rochdale, Manchester, Carlisle, Southend, Great Yarmouth, Lancashire, the West Riding, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Pictures or sculptures were usually lent on a termly basis. Other buyers included primary, secondary, independent and special schools, teacher training colleges and universities.

Despite the aplomb with which many educational figures took to buying artworks, most of these collections have now disappeared without a trace; it's hard to even find any information that they ever existed. Local authority boundaries have changed and schools have closed, merged, moved buildings or changed name. Many teacher-training colleges have been subsumed into universities. Plus teachers have moved on or retired – sometimes taking the artworks with them!

It’s not just the artworks and collections which have been forgotten about. Pictures for Schools itself has now all but disappeared from cultural memory. By the exhibitions’ close in 1969 times had changed. There was less money around, and a culture of educational patronage had developed among the more established educational buyers, who now visited artists and galleries direct rather than relying on an annual exhibition. One of the perceived benefits of loan schemes, as opposed to site-specific artworks, was that works of art would remain fresh through termly rotation, rather than becoming stale or fading into the background. Unfortunately, over time these pictures did become forgotten. By the 1980s much of the work was regarded as dark or old-fashioned. Instead, schools came to favour thematic displays or showcases of children’s work. By the turn of the twenty first-century, those collections that did survive were no longer regarded as resources but as potential monetary assets if sold.

However, the legacy of Pictures for Schools is not quite forgotten. Schools in Derbyshire can still borrow artworks bought at Pictures for Schools from the county collection, and some pictures bought at Pictures for Schools still hang in the art department of Manchester Grammar School, fifty years after they were purchased.

Pictures for Schools: Forgotten but not Quite Gone

After the Second World War, when the country was bombed, broken and broke, education and art were at the forefront of rebuilding Britain.

The education system faced considerable challenges. The raising of the school leaving age necessitated thousands of new teachers. Schools needed to expand or be rebuilt as classes were held in temporary huts outside crumbling Victorian or war-damaged buildings. This resulted in a school building boom which made use of new materials and construction techniques. The new developments in school architecture are widely regarded as being not just expedient but innovative, and have been the subject of several detailed studies. The murals and other site-specific artworks which were often commissioned alongside these schools have also enjoyed renewed interest in recent years.

What has been less well-documented is a forgotten post-war ideal which argued not just for the transformation of the buildings in which learning took place, but for creativity and art to be central to children’s lives and educational experience. One scheme aimed to put this into practice by helping children to grow up with art. Pictures for Schools hoped to develop a new culture of patronage among educational establishments. It sold contemporary paintings, sculptures, textiles and prints at prices affordable to educational buyers, to be displayed in schools and experienced by children first-hand and close-up. It was thought that this would not only stimulate children’s own creative expression but encourage them to see art as part of their everyday lives and experiences and view it as something they could enjoy in their own leisure time once they had left school.

Pictures for Schools took place for the first time in 1947 at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Exhibition space was difficult to find. Galleries had shut during the war and their collections had been transferred to safe spaces. For several years, the annual Pictures for Schools exhibitions flitted between various London venues – the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial Institute – before settling for several years at Whitechapel Gallery and ending up at the Royal Academy’s Diploma Galleries, where it took place for the last time in 1969. The scheme was widely publicised – Pictures for Schools was reported in the local, national and specialist press, and was featured on BBC radio programmes including Children’s Hour, whose in-house art critic did a detailed feature on the show.

Some of the artists who sold work through Pictures for Schools were well-known, including LS Lowry and Edward Bawden, but many Pictures for Schools artists’ names are now long-forgotten. Despite their obscurity, many have fascinating stories and lived lives closely intertwined with other developments in education and art, from Mass Observation and war art to documentary film-making. Many artists were young; the exhibitions provided an outlet and income for students and recent graduates. Also exhibiting were tutors from prestigious London art schools. Others are not household names but undertook important public commissions in the post-war period. These include Steven Sykes, whose decorative musical reliefs flank the stage at New Century Hall, inside the Co-operative’s former Manchester headquarters, New Century House, and whose jewelled Gesthemane Chapel glimmers opulently in Coventry Cathedral.

The exhibitions weren’t avant-garde, showing more representational than abstract work and displaying little in the way of new artistic developments. Artworks brought attention to corners of Britain that seem insignificant, unremarkable or forgettable. Several of the artists submitting work to Pictures for Schools had been involved in initiatives such as Recording Britain, a wartime project to record places at risk of disappearing. Pictures for Schools continued to offer a snapshot of the everyday places and activities of the post-war period. Sometimes these erred towards the twee or sentimental, but other artists highlighted industrial scenery and landscapes in stark, surprising and striking ways, from George Chapman’s sloping Welsh streets to JK Long’s ominously orange-hued, near-empty scenes.

Despite the challenges they faced, local education authorities and schools found money to buy artworks. Education committees in towns and cities all over the country enthusiastically travelled to the Pictures for Schools exhibitions, sometimes with groups of children. Collections of art to lend to schools were established in towns, cities and counties including Rochdale, Manchester, Carlisle, Southend, Great Yarmouth, Lancashire, the West Riding, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Pictures or sculptures were usually lent on a termly basis. Other buyers included primary, secondary, independent and special schools, teacher training colleges and universities.

Despite the aplomb with which many educational figures took to buying artworks, most of these collections have now disappeared without a trace; it's hard to even find any information that they ever existed. Local authority boundaries have changed and schools have closed, merged, moved buildings or changed name. Many teacher-training colleges have been subsumed into universities. Plus teachers have moved on or retired – sometimes taking the artworks with them!

It’s not just the artworks and collections which have been forgotten about. Pictures for Schools itself has now all but disappeared from cultural memory. By the exhibitions’ close in 1969 times had changed. There was less money around, and a culture of educational patronage had developed among the more established educational buyers, who now visited artists and galleries direct rather than relying on an annual exhibition. One of the perceived benefits of loan schemes, as opposed to site-specific artworks, was that works of art would remain fresh through termly rotation, rather than becoming stale or fading into the background. Unfortunately, over time these pictures did become forgotten. By the 1980s much of the work was regarded as dark or old-fashioned. Instead, schools came to favour thematic displays or showcases of children’s work. By the turn of the twenty first-century, those collections that did survive were no longer regarded as resources but as potential monetary assets if sold.

However, the legacy of Pictures for Schools is not quite forgotten. Schools in Derbyshire can still borrow artworks bought at Pictures for Schools from the county collection, and some pictures bought at Pictures for Schools still hang in the art department of Manchester Grammar School, fifty years after they were purchased.