On your doorstep: the National Gallery has come to Croydon with reproductions of 30 of its prized masterpieces, which will be displayed at nine locations around the borough until July
You would probably be blissfully unaware if you relied on information from the propaganda bunker at part-time Mayor Jason Perry’s dysfunctional council, but parts of Croydon are today arrayed with a selection of some of the world’s greatest artistic masterpieces.
Alright, not the original masterpieces. But faithful, life-sized reproductions of artworks from the National Gallery’s collection.
The National Gallery: Art On Your Doorstep is a free, outdoor exhibition of the nation’s favourite artworks. And it is here in Croydon for six months.
Minster Green: Jan Gossaerts masterpiece dates from the mid-1500s
“Working with local communities, paintings will be reproduced in their frames at life-size, printed in fine detail. Visitors will be able to look closely at the brushstrokes and discover hidden details up close,” the National Gallery says.
Croydon’s doorstep exhibition opened to the public yesterday.
It is entirely unmentioned on Croydon Council’s website.
Croydon is one of the first locations to have such masterpieces made available on its high street, in its parks or around its public spaces.
Queen’s Gardens has 11 of the pictures, with a selection tied up against its park railings, as if it were a Sunday morning with hopeful artists displaying their latest works along Piccadilly, or on the Rive Gauche in Paris. Just with the works of old masters on display instead.
On Minster Green, they have Jan Gossaert’s Adoration of the Kings, from the 16th Century.
Rotary Field in Purley has Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed, a stunning portrayal of the early steam-powered railways, sited there apparently because it is close to the route of the old Surrey Iron Railway. Which didn’t use steam engines. Because, y’know, this is Croydon…
There’s other works dotted around Park Hill Park, as well as at Coulsdon College, in Thornton Heath and in Upper Norwood, by artists including Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Stubbs, Van Eyck and Van Gogh.
In all, there are 30 life-size printed reproductions of artworks from the national collection, “installed in unexpected locations”.
Or, this being Croydon, not installed, as the case may be.
Surprised!: you will be if you try to view this National Gallery public exhibit between Feb 11 and 13, when parts of the Whitgift Centre will be closed to the public
The Courtyard of a House in Delft by Pieter de Hooch is supposed to be displayed in New Addington Library. Except what is described as “unexpected pipework” has got in the way. The reproduction painting is expected to be properly on show by this weekend.
Inevitably, there are also problems with the Whitgift Centre.
There, someone perhaps with a real sense of irony has chosen for display Surprised! by Henri Rousseau. As in “Surprised that anyone might still bother going into the Whitgift Centre.”
Yet the notion of the art being on public display breaks down a little next week, when the run-down old shopping centre is being used for a film set once again.
So the public won’t be allowed in to view the National Gallery artwork that’s supposed to be on public display.
“Partner organisations will create exhibitions and trails in their towns and cities, bringing creativity into everyday life and creating moments of joy,” the National Gallery says.
Except here in Croydon, where piss-poor Perry’s piss-poor press department has, so far, done nothing to help bring “creativity into everyday life”.
Which is about par for the course.
Here’s the full list of artworks and their locations. The National Gallery: Art On Your Doorstep runs in Croydon until July 5:
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News, views and analysis about the people of Croydon, their lives and political times in the diverse and most-populated borough in London.
Based in Croydon and edited by Steven Downes. To contact us, please email inside.croydon@btinternet.com