LONDON.- This summer sees the National Gallery’s flagship primary school programme, Take One Picture, bursting beyond the walls of the Gallery and into three nearby locations around Westminster. Each year, children from across the UK and beyond respond creatively to a single National Gallery painting, using it as inspiration for imaginative exploration across the school curriculum. This year’s painting is Pieter de Hooch’s The Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658).

Presenting the work of pupils from 40 schools across three sites in and around the National Gallery, this year’s exhibition takes the form of artwork displays and a digital augmented reality (AR) trail. The starting point for the digital experience is Jubilee Walk, situated outside of the newly reopened Sainsbury Wing, where people are being invited to use their mobile devices to explore children's artwork from four selected schools, brought to life through AR and co-created with the participating schools.

The AR trail builds on the Gallery's commitment to finding innovative digital ways to both create with and engage new audiences. The production process centred on a series of co-creation workshops at each of the schools, designed to enable the young artists to create new digital layers of interpretation for their work and consider how they might be experienced by Gallery visitors. The workshops included the use of motion capture system Move AI as well as 3D scanning, text-to-3D modelling and voice AI, bringing the children's artworks to life in a variety of fun, creative ways. This immersive, web-based experience for mobiles and tablets is powered by 8th Wall and was led and produced by award-winning emergent tech game studio, 1UP Studios.

Physical artworks are on display at St James’s Market Pavilion, a space generously donated by The Crown Estate for this project, and in the Gallery’s Roden Centre for Creative Learning. St James’s Market Pavilion showcases a wide range of creative and imaginative projects. Artworks have come from children’s own ideas and questions about the painting, such as ‘What does the plaque say?’, ‘What are the people doing?’ and ‘I wonder what the house looks like from the front?’

At the Gallery’s Roden Centre for Creative Learning, further physical artworks are on show, as well as a digital display of photographs and film capturing even more of the children’s responses to the painting. One Painting, Many Voices is being projected in the Centre’s Welcome Space, a film in which children from two exhibiting schools discuss everything from the buildings, the people in the painting to how the artist might have worked, and many more questions that sparked their imaginations.

This year, over 83,000 children from 380 schools took part in the Take One Picture programme – our biggest ever cohort for the programme’s 30th anniversary year. Take One Picture aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning across the curriculum, inspiring creativity, curiosity and a lifelong connection with artists’ work. By exhibiting a selection of the projects produced, the programme also provides a platform for celebrating children’s work, building pride and confidence in their achievements, and fostering a sense of ownership and belonging in the Gallery.

This year’s painting, Pieter de Hooch’s 'The Courtyard of a House in Delft', shows de Hooch’s skills in painting architecture but it is also a portrayal of tender family relationships. De Hooch was a master of the depiction of structure, of perspective and of the detail of objects and textures. He was also a master of the perceptive portrayal of human relationships, so subtly revealed in this painting. He has placed the child and maid in the area of the courtyard closest to nature, and their linked hands suggest that we are witness to a private, intimate moment between the two – a child who loves and is loved in return.

This year’s exhibition takes the display outside the walls of the Gallery and into our local community and celebrates welcoming people into the Roden Centre for Creative Learning, which opened earlier this year. Part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary capital projects, the Centre enables the Gallery to engage with an additional 50,000 learners annually, resulting in 246,000 learners benefiting from the learning programme in total each year.

The Welcome Space in the Roden Centre for Creative Learning is open each weekend and throughout the summer holidays with activities inspired directly by the exhibition. During the first two weeks of August, we’re inviting families to join workshops with artists every weekday, Monday to Friday.

Karen Eslea, Head of Learning and National Programmes at the National Gallery, said ‘Creative Learning is crucial to children’s development, and after 30 years this national project is more important than ever. All the children involved are empowered to explore the painting in a way that is relevant to their lives, and many of them have helped us to develop and deliver the project, and to inspire others. It is a wonderful example of how the National Gallery is supporting artists of the future and is committed to the life enriching power of the arts for all.’

Tim Allibone, Head of Portfolio Management for St James’s at The Crown Estate, said: ‘The Take One Picture programme gives us a unique opportunity to bring pockets of the National Gallery to the heart of the West End. It is a great privilege to showcase the children's artwork in St James's Market, giving visitors the chance to view masterpieces through the eyes of a child, only a stone's throw away from the iconic Gallery.’