A painting purchased for just $47 has been revealed to be worth up to $67,500, created by renowned New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins. The discovery was made on BBC One's "Fake or Fortune" show, where presenters Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould uncovered the secrets behind this artwork that was originally bought by a council under an innovative program called Pictures for Schools.
Robjn Cantus, an art blogger and author living near Cambridge, acquired the wrongly-attributed painting in 2019 as part of Hertfordshire County Council's massive sell-off of most of its 20th Century British art collection. Interestingly, Cantus didn't originally want this particular work but bought it along with another piece he was interested in. The true provenance of the painting was only discovered during the BBC investigation, highlighting the hidden treasures that once filled English school classrooms.
The phenomenon of English councils collecting valuable artwork traces back to the Pictures for Schools scheme, established in the aftermath of World War II. This visionary program was the brainchild of painter and teacher Nan Youngman, who lived from 1906 to 1995. "The idea was to give children artwork that was inspiring to look at," explained Cantus, who authored a book about Nan Youngman and Pictures for Schools. "Before Nan, a classroom would be full of sepia reproductions of paintings from the National Gallery - or posters given out by the Post Office as empirical propaganda - Nan wanted paintings by living artists in the schools."
Nan Youngman was a remarkable figure who trained as an artist at the prestigious Slade School of Art before qualifying as a teacher. She skillfully divided her time between teaching and creating art, exhibiting her work in London galleries throughout the 1930s. Later, she moved to Cambridgeshire with her partner, sculptor Betty Rea. In 1944, Youngman became the county's art adviser under education pioneer Henry Morris, who founded the village college secondary school system and was a strong supporter of the art scheme.
In 1945, Youngman served as chairman of the Society of Education through Arts, where she initiated a series of exhibitions featuring contemporary art for sale at affordable prices to education authorities. She called these groundbreaking exhibitions "Pictures for Schools." Cantus noted that she also organized "remarkably successful" post-war exhibitions. "She was an incredible artist as well as a visionary for Pictures for Schools, but because she's a woman, her work is downplayed," he added, highlighting the gender bias that has affected recognition of her contributions.
The Pictures for Schools scheme operated through an innovative lending system. Each county's library service stored the artwork - which could include paintings, drawings, sculptures, or textiles - and then loaned them out to schools on a rotating basis. Cantus explained that the concept was designed so that "every term, there would be something fresh to look at." Schools could use the artwork for multiple educational purposes. For example, "The school could use a painting of, say, a tractor, to teach about farming, the weather, machinery - or art," he said.
The program quickly gained momentum and spread across England. Collections of art to lend to schools were established by numerous authorities, including Rochdale, Manchester, Carlisle, Southend, Great Yarmouth, Derbyshire, Lancashire, the West Riding, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire. "Most of the children would never have had the opportunity to go to museums, there were no school trips, so the idea was to bring museum-quality art to schools," Cantus explained, emphasizing the democratic nature of the initiative.
Cambridgeshire became the first county to participate in the scheme, which is particularly noteworthy considering it was the second poorest county in England at the time. The county's first purchase was by L.S. Lowry, the artist best known for his urban landscapes populated with "matchstick men" figures. This investment proved remarkably successful - the council eventually sold the Lowry painting for $729,687 in 2009, demonstrating the long-term value of the program.
Meanwhile, Hertfordshire County Council went even further, commissioning the famous sculptor Henry Moore to create a piece called "Family Group" specifically for one of its schools in Stevenage. This shows how the program wasn't just about purchasing existing works but also about actively supporting contemporary artists. "Some of the artists would lower their fees so that local authorities would be able to afford the works, but many of the works were cheaper than normal exhibitions as the artists were not being charged the same fees as they would if they were exhibiting in a commercial gallery," Cantus noted.
At its peak, the scale of these collections was impressive. Cambridgeshire County Council owned approximately 400 artworks, while Hertfordshire owned nearly 2,000 pieces before it sold off the majority of its collection. The last official Pictures for Schools exhibition was held in 1969, but the spirit of the program continued, with some authorities - including Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire - continuing to purchase works until around 2000.
Looking back, it seems almost remarkable that so many local authorities had dedicated art advisers with budgets specifically allocated to buying contemporary art. However, practical challenges eventually undermined the program. Cantus explained that the ability to move artworks between schools became increasingly problematic, as did issues related to storage, restoration, and insurance. As council budgets faced cuts, these works - many of which were viewed as old-fashioned - ceased to function as school resources and instead became assets to be sold to fund essential services.
The Pictures for Schools program represents a unique moment in educational and cultural history. Cantus suggests that the idea of buying works of art by living artists and lending them to schools could only have emerged during "that post-war period of experimentation," when there was optimism about improving children's lives in innovative ways. "Everyone says how sad the scheme stopped, but everyone agrees that while it's a wonderful idea, it would be challenging to implement today," he concluded, reflecting on both the program's legacy and the changed circumstances that make such initiatives difficult in the current era.
