LONDON.- The Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF), in partnership with the BBC, today announced that all oil paintings in National Museums Liverpool have been added to the Your Paintings website for the nation to enjoy. Your Paintings is a project to create a complete online catalogue of every oil painting in the national collection, whether on display or in store, at bbc.co.uk/yourpaintings

Paintings by Old Masters such as Gainsborough, Martini, Rembrandt and Rubens, along with later works by artists such as Cézanne, Degas, Freud, Monet and Spencer are among the 3,000 paintings from National Museums Liverpool that can now be seen on Your Paintings. The National Museums Liverpool collection joins 3,150 other paintings from 35 collections across Merseyside that joined the site in 2011.

The National Museums Liverpool paintings are drawn from seven museum sites in Liverpool. These include the Lady Lever Art Gallery and the Walker Art Gallery which both boast outstanding collections of paintings including Old Masters, Victorian art, notably Pre-Raphaelite works, and post-war British painting. Important holdings of paintings can also be found at Sudley House and The Museum of Liverpool. Merseyside Maritime Museum’s collection of marine artworks serves to remind us that the sea and shipping are key to Liverpool’s identity, whilst the smaller collection at the UK Border Agency National Museum gives a fascinating glimpse of British social and political history. Together these collections provide a unique insight into the history and artistic heritage Liverpool.

To help the BBC and PCF identify and catalogue what can be seen in each painting, the public is being invited to ‘tag’ the nation’s paintings. Tagging is fun, easy and you don’t need to be an art expert to do it. The results will allow future users of the Your Paintings website to find paintings of subjects that interest them. Your Paintings Tagger is at http://tagger.thepcf.org.uk

Ann Bukantas, Head of Fine Art, National Museums Liverpool, said: “This project means thousands of works can be enjoyed by people all around the globe. We expect that many people will be inspired by these works and will be encouraged to experience the wonder of fantastic art in person through visiting our galleries and museums.”