Can you spot the fake masterpiece?

A new TV show, entitled Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge has seen some of Britain’s most prized paintings replaced by fakes in an effort to raise the profile of art and the importance of a critical eye.

In a handful of galleries around Britain, some of the paintings have been removed from the walls and replaced with fakes for the new show, presented by Giles Coren and art historian Rose Balston.

In a release via Europawire, director of Sky Arts Phil Edgar-Jones explains that participants do not have to be trained art historians: “… all you need is a sense of curiosity and an eye for detail. We wanted to tell the story of British Art with a sense of fun, and in a way that would encourage us all to take a closer and more critical look at the works of great British Artists.”

The seven fakes, created from scratch by contemporary artists and installed with full permission, are currently hanging in six galleries around Britain – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London and Manchester. Participants unable to travel to each location with their magnifying glasses can also play the game online via the show’s website www.skyartsfake.com.

Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge

TV presenter Giles Coren (left) and art historian Rose Balston are the hosts of Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge.

Those who successfully spot all the fake paintings will be entered into a competition to win a fake masterpiece of their own, and the chance to feature in the series finale.

With the exception of the finale, each episode will focus on a different period of British art history. The show will start in Edinburgh at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where the fake is hiding among a collection on The Art Of The Stuart Courts, before moving to the Lady Lever Art Gallery’s Golden Age English Portraiture collection in Liverpool.

At the Walker Art Gallery (also in Liverpool), the fake will be among pieces from Animal & Sporting Art, and will be imitating a classic British landscape masterpiece in Cardiff.

Moving to London, the impostor has been hidden among the Victorian Narrative paintings at the Guildhall Art Gallery, and will be in two different collections in Manchester’s Art Gallery. The series finale will be held at the Ashmolean, the world’s oldest museum, in Oxford. – AFP Relaxnews

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