Take One Picture

Issued May 2023

13 July – 8 October 2023
Sunley Room
Admission free

This summer, the National Gallery will showcase children’s artworks in the 28th annual Take One Picture exhibition, with students across the country taking inspiration from Claude-Joseph Vernet’s A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas.

Each year the Gallery invites primary schools nationwide to focus on one of its paintings and respond creatively, following the children’s questions and ideas. The programme aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning across the curriculum, inspiring a lifelong connection with artists’ work and with museums and galleries. By exhibiting a selection of the work produced, the programme also provides a platform for celebrating children’s work and for fostering a sense of belonging in the Gallery.

This year the National Gallery consulted with teachers to choose the focus painting, and selected 'A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas' (1773) by Claude-Joseph Vernet.  Originally known as ‘Tempête’ (Storm), this painting is one of a pair of seascapes. It shows a rocky shoreline buffeted by a violent sea storm. Two ships roll in the giant swell, sails tied down, or tattered by the turbulent winds and lashing rain. Bolts of lightning streak from the dark thunder clouds that cover the sun, and huge waves crash over the shore, pouring like waterfalls back down from the cliffs. The remains of a ship lie shattered against the rocks in the lower right foreground. Figures carry salvaged goods up the beach, while an unconscious woman is laid out on a rock. Further down the coast there is a break in the clouds and sunlight bathes the mountainous landscape. It appears that the storm has arrived suddenly and without warning, leaving no time for the lighthouse lamp to be lit. Perhaps the distant sunlit landscape is to give us hope that the storm will soon abate.

This year’s exhibition has been designed in collaboration with children, and includes creative projects from 40 primary schools across the country, ranging from tea-stained diaries to dramatic dance performances. Their projects make links between art and subjects across the curriculum such as history, science, geography and literacy.  

Year 3 students at Icknield Primary School, Luton, wondered why the captain of the ship had not checked the forecast before they set sail. After learning that the weather was difficult to predict in the 1700s, they discussed how and why we check the forecast today, and how weather can be measured. The class then designed their own weather station and recorded the weather over the next week, including levels of wind and rain. One student said, ‘The picture was amazing. I could see the weather was dangerous. I didn’t realise how powerful the weather could be.’

After working on their project, one Year 6 student at Mab’s Cross Community Primary School, Wigan, said, ‘All you have to do is open your eyes and the whole world is around you. Now I know all the features of a coast when I next see them. I’ve learned that no matter your art skill, you can still make a masterpiece.’ The class had wanted to know where the painting was set, but they learned that it was actually made up from many places Vernet had visited. They discussed the features of coastal places they had been, before designing and making maps for their own imaginary islands.

Many projects focused on the theme of travelling by sea, thinking about what could cause a shipwreck and the experience of the people on board. This led some children to focus on water safety, learning about the importance of lighthouses and working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The project also encouraged many children to visit their own local beaches, collecting objects and taking photographs to include in their artworks. These visits highlighted the problem of plastic pollution in our seas and inspired children to use recycled materials.

Karen Eslea, Head of Learning and National Programmes at the National Gallery, said ‘These children are young artists who explore the world, and their own learning, through looking very carefully at one painting. Asking questions and investigating with others in their own community and beyond helps them to develop creative ways in which to respond. This exhibition illustrates the power of children’s ideas and creativity, and how they can help us all to think more deeply about the paintings in the collection, but also about our lives and the lives of others. Thank you to all the inspiring children and teachers who have taken part this year.’

'Take One Picture' is generously supported by Columbia Threadneedle Foundation.

The Sunley Room exhibition programme is supported by the Bernard Sunley Foundation. 

Notes to editors

Image: Claude-Joseph Vernet, 'A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas ('Tempête')', 1773 © The National Gallery, London

About Take One Picture

Launched in 1995, Take One Picture is the National Gallery’s countrywide scheme for primary schools. Each year the Gallery focuses on one painting from the collection to inspire cross-curricular work in primary classrooms. The Gallery offers one-day training sessions which give teachers the opportunity to learn about the focus picture and explore the pedagogy and practice of using paintings as a rich resource for child-led, investigative learning. Each year a selection of work produced by schools based on the painting is shown at the National Gallery and published on the website. In order to be considered for the display, schools submit examples of how a whole class or school has used the picture to inspire projects that are child-led and cross-curricular, and through which children have learned a new process and involved people or places in the local community.

Further information about the programme, related CPD courses for teachers, and the annual 'Take One Picture' exhibition at the National Gallery can be found at nationalgallery.org.uk/take-one-picture

About Claude-Joseph Vernet (1563–1639)

Claude-Joseph Vernet was one of the leading French landscape painters  of the later 18th century. He achieved great celebrity with his topographical paintings and serene landscapes. He was also one of the century's most accomplished painters of storms and moonlight scenes.

Vernet was born in Avignon and trained there with his father, Antoine, and with the history painter Philippe Sauvan. He spent the years 1734 to 1752 in Rome, where he studied classical landscapes in the tradition of Claude and Gaspard Dughet, as well as the dramatic paintings of Salvator Rosa. In Rome he was influenced by the contemporary Roman topographical painter Giovanni Paolo Panini. He had many English clients and admirers in Rome, including Richard Wilson, whom Vernet is thought to have encouraged as a landscape painter.

Vernet became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on his return to France and in 1753 received the important royal commission for a series of large canvases representing the ports of France (1753–65).

Claude-Joseph Vernet was one of the leading French landscape painters  of the later 18th century. He achieved great celebrity with his topographical paintings and serene landscapes. He was also one of the century's most accomplished painters of storms and moonlight scenes.

Vernet was born in Avignon and trained there with his father, Antoine, and with the history painter Philippe Sauvan. He spent the years 1734 to 1752 in Rome, where he studied classical landscapes in the tradition of Claude and Gaspard Dughet, as well as the dramatic paintings of Salvator Rosa. In Rome he was influenced by the contemporary Roman topographical painter Giovanni Paolo Panini. He had many English clients and admirers in Rome, including Richard Wilson, whom Vernet is thought to have encouraged as a landscape painter.

Vernet became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on his return to France and in 1753 received the important royal commission for a series of large canvases representing the ports of France (1753–65).

About Columbia Threadneedle Investments

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is a leading global asset manager that provides a broad range of actively managed investment strategies and solutions for individual, institutional and corporate clients around the world. With more than 2000 people including over 450 investment professionals based in North America, Europe and Asia, it manages £373bn of assets (at 31 December 2019) across developed and emerging market equities, fixed income, asset allocation solutions and alternatives.

Columbia Threadneedle Foundation is committed to investing in the community through partnerships that create positive social impact. It focuses on charities that use education, art and sport to engender lasting social change. Common threads in its programmes and charity partners include the ability to build skills and confidence, challenge perspectives, and broaden horizons.
www.columbiathreadneedle.com

The Bernard Sunley Foundation

The Sunley Room was established at the National Gallery in 1984 and the Foundation has supported the exhibition programme in the Sunley Room every year since 1990. The Bernard Sunley Foundation is a family grant-making foundation which supports charities in England and Wales that deliver a real community focus and provide greater opportunities for the young, the elderly, the disabled and the disadvantaged.

Schools represented in the exhibition

Beehive Lane Community Primary School, Essex
Blackthorn Primary School, Northampton
Chenies School, Hertfordshire
Clavering Primary School, Essex
Covingham Park Primary School, Swindon
Dalmilling Primary School, Scotland
Durham High School, Durham
Grange Park School, Kent
Headley Park Primary School, Bristol
Hill Top CE Primary School and Nursery, Bradford
Home Farm Primary School, Bradford
Hua Hin International School, Thailand
Hungerford Primary School, West Berkshire
Icknield Primary School, Luton
John Bunyan Primary School, Essex
King's Meadow School, Oxfordshire
Lapage Primary School, Bradford
Mab's Cross Community Primary School, Wigan
Mayespark Primary School, London
Moreland Primary School, London
New Delaval Primary School, Northumberland
Park Junior School, Wellingborough
Pencalenick School, Cornwall
Perry Hall Primary School, Kent
Poole Home Education Group, Dorset
Radnage Church of England Primary School, Buckinghamshire
Rectory Farm Primary School, Northampton
RGS The Grange, Worcester
Rookery School, Birmingham
S. Anselm's School, Derbyshire
Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, Lancashire
Sidmouth Church of England Primary School, Devon
Snaresbrook Primary School, London
St James's Roman Catholic Primary School, London
St Martin De Porres Catholic Primary School, Luton
Sydenham Primary School, Warwickshire
The British School of Córdoba, Spain
Tweedmouth Prior Park First School, Northumberland
Two Mile Ash School, Milton Keynes
West End Primary School, Lancashire

Press enquiries

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Publicity images can be obtained from https://press.nationalgallery.org.uk/