So here they are, as promised: photos of my Grand Tour through London’s streets. The lady that pops up in the pictures sometimes is my sister Astrid.

I really liked the pictures, and the execution was well done. Thy were hanging close to the tourist tracks. but not exclusively, and very often in little side streets (off Carnaby Street for instance).

I really enjoyed that the presentation was as if they had just been taken out of the National Gallery and hung on a street corner. Even the written descriptions looked exactly like the ones in the museum.

And as for the printing: it was well executed. They also visually reproduced the texture of the canvas. Some of the pictures were already a bit chipped, the ones in more popular places. But overall, they looked very good and it was quite refreshing spotting random works of art in between visiting stores and cafes.

That is the project’s main strength: the pictures encourage you stop what you’re doing for a minute to focus on something else, they have a positive disruptive impact. Sponsors however didn’t make use of this that much. Apart from the National Gallery, no sponsors were clearly visible around the pictures. As a recipient I usually enjoy this, but as someone working in communication it makes me wonder… I guess it was a decision by the National Gallery not to distract from the pictures too much by plastering sponsor names everywhere; after all, it really did look like the pictures were just taken out of their usual surroundings. But some form of creative sponsorship info would have been nice or even beneficiary – like describing what which sponsor did to make the project happen next to the pictures. I would have put one sponsor next to every work of art, so that people could learn about the art as well as what was done to make this project possible.

I shall contact the National Gallery to find out why they left sponsors out of the presentation. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.