Take One Picture is an annual project, this year celebrating its 20th year, in which the National Gallery invites hundreds of primary schools from across the UK to use one of its paintings as the stimulus for learning right across the curriculum. For 2015, the chosen painting was a dramatic altarpiece, Saint Michael Triumphant over the Devil (1468) by fifteenth century Spanish artist Bartolomé Bermejo.
Bermejo’s painting, which usually lives in Room 63 of the gallery, depicts a triumphant Saint Michael brandishing his sword and defeating a dramatically, and you might even say comically, painted devil with evil glowing red eyes and a mouthful of pointed fangs. The schools involved submitted their responses to the painting and a selection of the work produced by the pupils is now on display in the Annenberg Court until 20th September.
There’s a brilliant and hugely diverse range of works on show, drawing, collage, metalwork, which reflects the imagination and creativity of the children. Shape and size, light and dark, good versus evil were some of the themes explored. Pupils from Northern House School in Oxford were particularly inspired by the narrative of good versus evil and created a composite image of each pupils ‘avatar’, or alter-ego, some aping superheroes and others echoing the forms found in the painting. Working with an artist-in-residence they created their images using iPad art, well if its good enough for David Hockney…
Congratulations to all the schools represented in the 2015 display:
Clayesmore Preparatory School, Dorset
Columbia Primary School, London
Gawber Primary School, Barnsley
Grimes Dyke Primary School, Leeds
Huish Episcopi School, Somerset
Hull Collegiate School, Hull
King Edward’s Junior School, Bath
Leamington Federation of Sydenham Primary School and Lighthorne Heath Primary School, Warwickshire
Moreton Hall School, Shropshire
Myatt Garden Primary School, London
Northern House School, Oxford
Olney Infant Academy, Buckinghamshire
St James’s Catholic Primary School, London
William Barnes Primary School, Dorset
Ysgol Gynradd Creigiau Primary School, Cardiff
There is also a slideshow on display in the exhibition containing work for a further 33 schools.
Take One Picture is generously supported by The Dorset Foundation, The Tavolozza Foundation and Christoph Henkel.
Admission: FREE
Opening hours:
Daily 10am-6pm
Fridays until 9pm
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN
The London Art File 