In some ways, the post-war cultural and economic landscape of Britain was a bleak one. And yet, a young artist and educationalist Nan Youngman brought a light to children’s lives by the power of a single idea – ‘Pictures for Schools’.
Convinced that children’s natural creativity would be awakened by seeing original works of art rather than reproductions, she set about enlisting her artistic contacts and friends to offer paintings, to be exhibited and then sold, to local councils to then be hung in schools.
Poverty of circumstances should not equal poverty of the imagination!
In 1947, and for the next 22 years, the scheme brightened the art rooms of England.
‘Nan knows everyone – that is, every painter, sculpture, and craftsman in Britain’
The list of contributors reads as if you are calling the register of mid-twentieth century British artists. From a personal favourite of mine, the still rather unknown, Elizabeth Vellacott:
To the very well known L. S. Lowry – titan of the British industrial landscape. I wonder what the children thought of his art?…as the school bell rang, and they stepped out into the street, as if into one of his paintings…
