Arts Council Loses Art

Police may be called in to trace more than 100 works of art bought with taxpayers' money in Northern Ireland, a damning report has revealed. The Arts Council has admitted that it does not know the whereabouts of more than 50 art works in its £2.7m collection. Another 56 art works jointly purchased through a partnership scheme are unaccounted for. It has also been disclosed that more than 70 pieces from the art collection had to be written off as permanently lost in the 1990s. The revelations come in a report issued by the Northern Ireland Audit Office, Ulster's public spending watchdog. The arts council says it now has an "excellent" electronic management system. Its collection currently extends to some 1,200 art works - mainly paintings but also drawings, prints, photographs, ceramics and sculptures. The works written off in the 1990s included paintings by well-known artists such as TP Flanagan and Neil Shawcross. "We also found that works were stored on wooden shelving with many works leaning against each other," it added. The Arts Council agreed that there were concerns over conditions but said these were "not major or serious", and that the works were placed carefully "by the curator who is qualified to handle them". For the full story - click the title Irish Art