Biography
Operating as a ‘museum without walls’ the Arts Council Collection, founded in 1946, is the largest national loan collection of modern and contemporary British art in the world, and includes important examples by all of the UK’s prominent artists. It is the most widely circulated of all of Britain’s national collections and can be seen in exhibitions in museums and galleries across the UK and abroad. Unique among national collections, the Arts Council Collection lends to public buildings across the UK, including schools, universities, hospitals and charitable associations. It has been managed by the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre on behalf of Arts Council England since 1986. A new Arts Council Collection store in Coventry is palnned to open in 2024.
The Contemporay Art Society assisted with the acquisitions of works from its The Seasons and Relgious Theme exhibitions held at Tate in 1956 and 1959 respectively by Keith Vaughan, Lynn Chadwick, Norman Adams and Victor Willing. In 1998 Alison Wilding was commissioned by an anonymous donor to make a series of sculptures based on scenes of The Passion of Christ which were presented through the CAS with aid from the Henry Moore Foundation in 2005. The films by the sister duo Jane and Louise Wilson, Proton, Unity, Energy, Blizzard (2000) and Unfolding the Aryan Papers (2009) were presemted in 2011.
