There is a remarkable project of great enterprise and diligence in progress throughout the land — a plan to catalogue all the oil paintings (as well as those in acrylic or tempera) in national collections. This gigantic task is being undertaken by a charity called The Public Catalogue Foundation, which is publishing its findings in single volumes dedicated to different areas of the UK. The aim is to give a county-by-county account of pictures in museums and other public collections.
As I write, I have in front of me half a dozen of the Foundation’s catalogues: West Yorkshire: Leeds; Cambridgeshire: Fitzwilliam Museum; East Sussex; North Yorkshire; Suffolk and Imperial War Museum. Obviously some places are more dense with pictures than others, particularly a metropolitan centre like London. So far, the Foundation has only published The Slade and UCL and the Imperial War Museum catalogues to represent the capital’s rich and varied collections, though more volumes are forthcoming.
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