Overnight on Friday 1st July, millions of pounds worth of priceless masterpieces by celebrated British Artists were switched for copies at museums and galleries around the UK. The stunt was part of Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge a forthcoming series for Sky Arts starring Giles Coren and Rose Balston.
As the national competition reaches its halfway point, initial statistics reveal that people are struggling with landscapes and scenes, as little as 9% have spotted the fake Urban Landscape amongst the Lowry and Valette’s at Manchester Art Gallery, only 14% have managed to identify the right British Landscape painting at National Museum Cardiff and just 16% of entrants have discovered the fake amongst scenes of Victorian life at Guildhall Art Gallery in London

Throughout July, members of the public of all ages and experience are invited to use their detective skills to spot the seven copies hiding in plain sight on the walls of six galleries in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London and Manchester. 

“We’ve been thrilled with the response to the competition so far,” says Phil Edgar-Jones, Director of Sky Arts, “People are really getting up close to these wonderful paintings and having fun discovering the joys of British Artist. I’m impressed by the level of success in Merseyside – do they have a better eye for detail than the rest of the country? Scotland is also doing well, but there’s still time for art spotters in London, Manchester and Cardiff to prove their powers of detection! It’s a great activity to do with the kids in the holidays.”

 

Maria Balshaw, Director Manchester City Galleries and the Whitworth, comments: “We are delighted by the response to Fake! The Masterpiece Challenge. Our visitors have turned detective, trying to correctly guess the two copies hidden in the galleries. Interestingly the work by Lowry or Valette is proving the most challenging to spot in the whole competition, such is the similarity to the original. We look forward to seeing how many more people can identify it before the end of the competition.”

The competition is open to all ages until the end of the month, with the chance for those who correctly identify the most ‘fakes’ to be invited to take part in the series finale. These finalists will compete to win a specially commissioned copy of their very own.

Each programme in the series will shine a light on a particular period of British Art, featuring interviews with specialist curators from each gallery and the contemporary artists who have been commissioned to secretly recreate the masterpieces from scratch.

Manchester Art Gallery’s popular display of Pre-Raphaelite paintings with works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt hides one masterpiece which is not all that it seems and the gallery has also created a special display of paintings of the city by LS Lowry and Adolphe Valette; one of which is a copy.

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