As part of the Art Scholarship Preparation Programme, the boys attended a special ‘behind the scenes’ experience at the Tate Britain. Charity Fox, an Art conservator at the Tate, gave the boys an insight into the logistics involved in managing thousands of artworks and the issues surrounding the conservation, preservation, re-fabrication and displaying of artworks. The boys explored Picasso’s ‘Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper’, 1913, with different microscopes and devices, whilst Charity explained her current project on attempting to make a replica out of historically accurate materials and the issues she has encountered.
The boys looked for restoration ‘evidence’ in Turner’s work, discussed the artist’s techniques and materials and find out how the Tate researches and analyses artworks to determine how best to preserve them for future generations.
