Gateshead's Baltic to host Artists Rooms tour (From The Northern Echo)

Gateshead's Baltic to host Artists Rooms tour

4:04pm Wednesday 2nd December 2009 in

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THE largest ever public gift of art to UK museums, boasting works by some of the most celebrated artists, will tour 21 venues next year - including the Baltic in Gateshead.

The Artist Rooms tour of works this year reached around eight million people, including more than 700,000 people outside of London and Edinburgh in places as far afield as Stromness in Orkney, Middlesbrough and Bexhill, East Sussex.

The pioneering scheme was set up though former dealer and collector Anthony d'Offay, who donated his collection of more than 1,000 works to Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland last year.

The aim of the donation, which features the work of 32 artists including Gilbert and George, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol, is to make great art available throughout the UK to inspire young people.

The collection is held jointly by National Galleries of Scotland and Tate and has been boosted by further gifts from donors including artist Ed Ruscha.

Organisers said that next year's tour will include an exhibition of Warhol's early drawings at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, and a major show of Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay's work on Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will hold a Gilbert and George exhibition, while the Towner in Eastbourne will show photographs by American artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

Works by Richard Long will go on display in the newly-refurbished Ulster Museum in Belfast, while Leicester Museums and Galleries will devote an exhibition to German artist Gerhard Richter.

Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, will show work by American artist Alex Katz.

Meanwhile, Gateshead's Baltic will display works by German artist Anselm Kiefer, including the installation Palm Sunday, which was recently shown at Tate Modern.

The collection is titled as such as it is intended to be shown in exhibitions devoted to individual artists.

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw, who was at today's launch in London, said: ''The best art and culture should be available to everyone in the UK wherever they live and whatever their resources are.''