The Grand Tour - National Gallery

The National Gallery has harnessed technology to take its paintings to the people.

With it’s grand façade, iconic paintings and national status, The National Gallery may appear to some as a bastion of the establishment.

But now you can see a selection of its finest works including  Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Rubens’ Samson and Delilah and Constable’s The Hay Wain as you pop past Liberty or saunter through Piccadilly Circus.

The Grand Tour – the first of its kind in the world -  has literally taken 44 of the most popular paintings from the gallery’s collection and displayed them –  for 12 weeks -  around the West End; gilt frames, plaques and all.

OK – so they’re not the originals. But, in part, that’s the beauty of it.

They are full size, high quality digital copies , provided – by a massive 2.6 m wide printer – from Hewlett Packard, who have sponsored the whole project.
Art and technology working together.

And hopefully encouraging more people to take a look at great works of art and then visit the gallery for more.
“There’s a large audience of people who in some way feel inhibited by coming into the gallery,” says the National’s director Charles Saumarez Smith.
“This project shows that the works of art are available to everyone.”

And it’s all free, as is the National's permanant collection.

There are a series of tailor made tours ( for which you can download an MP3 audio guide ) including “The Heavy Hitters Tour” and “ The Lovers Tour.” 
And each individual painting has a low rate phone number printed on its plaque so visitors can call on their mobiles to hear more about the work.

Seeing the paintings outdoors on unexpected walls and sides of buildings is refreshing, thought-provoking, fun and democratic.
And that, perhaps, is what our establishment should be all about.

For more information visit www.thegrandtour.org.uk