A SMALL market town in the region is not where priceless works of art from New York, Boston and France would expect to be found.

Yet the reputation of the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, is growing both nationally and internationally, and for its latest exhibition, it has been loaned masterpieces from all over the world.

The Boudin, Monet and the Sea Painters of Normandy exhibition has seen visitor numbers soar as people flock to see paintings from institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, in Ohio, US.

The 54 paintings in the exhibition are the result of months of work by museum staff.

The exhibition took more than a year to plan and involved an enormous amount of organisational work involving loan requests, transport and courier logistics, insurance, environmental issues, marketing, merchandising, printing of the catalogue and planning the "hang" of the show.

The original concept of the exhibition grew out of the museum's previous Road to Impressionism exhibition.

In the late 19th Century the advent of the railway meant Normandy had become a popular holiday destination for Parisians.

The dramatic landscape attracted a number of artists wanting to paint the holiday crowds, as well as the sea and coastline. It was in Normandy that Boudin met a 17-year-old Monet and encouraged him to draw and paint.

The museum already had some works by Boudin in its collection and the exhibition explores the relationship between the two men, what inspired them and how their art developed.

Viv Reid, the museum's exhibitions manager, said: "We often like to use our own collection as a starting point.

"Once we know what the exhibition is going to be about we start devising a wish-list of paintings we want in it and start approaching museums to see whether they would be willing to loan us them.

"We always have a larger list than we need as sometimes institutions might not be able to loan us paintings. For this exhibition we thought we would need about 40 works for it to be successful."

Between 30 and 40 institutions were approached and 22 institutions, and one private lender, have loaned works for the Boudin and Monet exhibition.

Ms Reid said: "Often the Bowes will have to prove and improve the environmental conditions. We have to prove we have the right security as well other environmental factors, such as lighting, humidity and temperature."

Although occasionally museums may request a lending fee, often the loan of a work of art is for free on the understanding that the favour may be returned.

Nevertheless, borrowing a painting can often cost a museum several thousands of pounds.

As well as insurance, the museum will pay the transport and courier costs.

Delivering the works to the Bowes involved seven different trucks taking different routes across the country.

Eleven couriers accompanied various painting or groups of paintings, including two couriers from America.

As well as providing security for the painting on the journey, the couriers will also check to see whether the Bowes has fulfilled all of the environmental and security conditions attached to the loan.

Ms Reid said: "Most of the couriers are gobsmacked when they get here. They don't think a place like this would exist in a small town.

"They're amazed at the scale of the museum and the quality of the collection.

"I think some of them are quite jealous, as most of them come from fairly busy cities and would quite like to work in a rural area like this."

The gallery itself is also altered to accommodate the new exhibition. It was repainted a sandy colour to reflect the shades used in the paintings.

Also, a new lighting track with additional spotlights, all fitted with ultraviolet filters, was installed.

Prior to the arrival of the paintings, their dimensions are acquired, and paper cut-outs the exact size of the painting are hung in the gallery to design the layout of the exhibition.

The huge number of people coming to see the exhibition and the favourable comments in the visitors book seem to justify the amount of time and work spent organising the exhibition.

Ms Reid said: "When the exhibition is finished, several thousand people will have seen it.

"These exhibitions all help to raise our profile in the national and international community. The more we deal with large museums the more our profile is noticed."

Published: 01/07/2004