LONDON.- A new app, commissioned by Tate as part of The Great British Art Debate project, has been launched, available for free across the UKand Europe. The Pocket Art Gallery is an augmented reality app which allows users to virtually curate their own gallery, positioning famous artworks from a number of key collections across the country in personalised surroundings. Users can also take photographs of their art collection and share them with friends on Facebook, twitter or the Pocket Art Gallery map:
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/apps/pocket-art-gallery

This inventive app is native to iOS. As well as looking through an iPhone camera to see the artworks in the real world, the user can access information about the artist, the history of the piece and the subject depicted.

The Great British Art Debate is a partnership between Tate Britain, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service and Museums Sheffield, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, and by the MLA’s Renaissance programme. This four-year project, which concludes this year, was designed to stimulate debate about the impact of British art on the public’s perception of Britishness. As part of the activity, the institutions involved digitised some of their collection artworks for the first time, and this content has been harnessed by design agency AllofUs to create the augmented reality application.

Marie Bak Mortensen, Manager of the Great British Art Debate project said: “This innovative app uses augmented reality to bring great artworks from the UK’s national collections into people lives, allowing them to share and showcase their favourite works wherever they want. It’s a wonderful way to conclude the Great British Art Debate project and to extend its legacy.’

Since 2009, a number of important exhibitions have toured the four Great British Art Debate partner organisations, including a major John Martin exhibition and the Watercolour exhibition. The final display in the series, Family Matters: The Family in British Art will run from15 October 2012 to24th February 2013 at Tate Britain. It shows how the subject of the family has been, and continues to be, a challenging yet enduring subject for artists and showcases works by David Hockney, Anthony van Dyck, William Hogarth and Tracey Emin.

To date the project has reached more than 1,650,000 audiences across the four partners venues out of which 132,207 were young people and 295 works of art have toured between partners.

The Pocket Art Gallery app is available free from the Apple App store