LONDON.- Overnight on Friday 1st July, millions of pounds worth of priceless masterpieces by celebrated British Artists were switched for copies at museums and galleries around the UK. The stunt was part of Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge a forthcoming series for Sky Arts starring Giles Coren and Rose Balston, produced by IWC Media and GroupM Entertainment.

Throughout July, members of the public of all ages and experience are invited to use their detective skills to spot the seven copies hiding in plain sight on the walls of six galleries in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London and Manchester. All seven displays are also available for investigation online, via the competition website: skyartsfake.com

As the national competition reaches its halfway point, initial statistics* reveal that:

· fake animal and portrait paintings are easiest to detect and Merseyside art-spotters are the most perceptive

o 70% of respondents have identified fakes among a collection of animal paintings at Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool

o 59% have correctly identified the fake English Portrait at Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, Wirral

o 41% have correctly identified fake portraits of The Stuart Courts at Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh

· BUT people have been struggling with landscapes and scenes

o only 16% of entrants have discovered the fake amongst scenes of Victorian life at Guildhall Art Gallery in London

o just 14% have managed to identify the right British Landscape painting at National Museum Cardiff

o as little as 9% have spotted the fake Urban Landscape amongst the Lowry and Valette’s at Manchester Art Gallery

“We’ve been thrilled with the response to the competition so far,” says Phil Edgar-Jones, Director of Sky Arts, “People are really getting up close to these wonderful paintings and having fun discovering the joys of British Artist. I’m impressed by the level of success in Merseyside – do they have a better eye for detail than the rest of the country? Scotland is also doing well, but there’s still time for art spotters in London, Manchester and Cardiff to prove their powers of detection! It’s a great activity to do with the kids in the holidays.”

The competition is open to all ages until the end of the month, with the chance for those who correctly identify the most ‘fakes’ to be invited to take part in the series finale. These finalists will compete to win a specially commissioned copy of their very own.

Each programme in the series will shine a light on a particular period of British Art, featuring interviews with specialist curators from each gallery and the contemporary artists who have been commissioned to secretly recreate the masterpieces from scratch.

- at Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, the fake is hidden in a display on The Art of The Stuart Courts, including portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, James I and Charles II

- at Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, Wirral, the copy is placed amid a collection of Golden Age English Portraiture by the likes of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney

- at Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the copy is hidden amongst paintings of Animal and Sporting Art from the 18th and 19th centuries

- at National Museum Cardiff, the copy is made of a British Landscape amongst masters such as J.M.W Turner and Richard Wilson

- at Guildhall Art Gallery in London, the imposter hides amongst the collection of Victorian Painting - 16% of entrants have correctly guessed the fake to date

- Manchester Art Gallery’s popular display of Pre-Raphaelite paintings with works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt hides one masterpiece which is not all that it seems

- Manchester Art Gallery has also created a special display of paintings of the city by LS Lowry and Adolphe Valette; one of which is a copy

- the final of the television series will be hosted at the world’s oldest public museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where the competition will reach its climax

This is the first Sky television series to be presented by Giles Coren, award-winning critic and columnist for The Times, following his debut on Sky Arts in an episode of My Failed Novel. His other broadcast appearances involved the hit BBC Back in Time for... series and the landmark Supersizers series with Sue Perkins.

The series is the television debut for Rose Balston, an Edinburgh-educated art historian and writer who lectures for the V&A and founded her own company, Art History UK, to run bespoke guided tours of art and architecture both in Britain and abroad.

Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge will be recorded throughout July and August and screened on Sky Arts in the new year, when the identity of the seven ‘fakes’ and the artists who have been commissioned to copy them will be revealed. The seven originals paintings will return to the galleries once the competition has ended in August.