A North East gallery is set to make a national impression following news that it has been picked to showcase world-class artwork as part of the National Gallery’s Masterpiece Tour.
The London gallery, in partnership with North East museums, has chosen – for a third time – a local venue to host one of its art treasures. Following on from the display of a Constable in Jarrow in 2023 and last year’s loan of a famous Turner oil to Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, a painting by Impressionist master Claude Monet next will be sent north.
It was announced this Monday that the French master’s 1872 work The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil is to go on display at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery in early 2026. The South Tyneside gallery is one of just four venues picked to host the next Masterpiece Tour and this will prove a rare opportunity to view the work as the Monet has left the National only once before in the past 20 years.
Keith Merrin, director of North East Museums, said of the news: “We’re thrilled.” The idea of the tour is to take world-class art to audiences outside of the capital and here the Monet painting will also form the heart of work to engage with young people in South Tyneside who are affected by EBSA: ’emotion based school avoidance’ which is said to be a growing issue both locally and nationally.
It inspired a recent pilot project at the museum which used art as a medium for self-expression to help young people struggling to attend school for reasons such as anxiety. The art tour is set to expand upon this and help improve health and wellbeing in the community.
The Monet will hang alongside work created by these young people, along with their teachers and various organisations, as well as art from the museum’s own collection and their general themes will revolve around the calm, retreat and resilience to be found in art and nature.
Keith said: “Hosting this artwork will not only act as inspiration for important engagement work with young people but it will offer a brilliant opportunity for people in our region to experience world-class art right here in South Tyneside.” Dr Gabriele Finaldi, director of The National Gallery, said: “Partnering on touring exhibitions does so much more than bring beloved paintings from the collection to other places in the UK.”
He said the gallery’s collection “belongs to all of us” and it has a duty to look after the paintings and “bring them to where people are, not just expect them to come to us”. Sharing the art supports the whole country’s cultural ecosystem, he added, and also allows the gallery to learn from the creativity of its partner organisations and their communities.
Since its inception in 2014, the National Gallery Masterpiece Tour, which involves three-year partnerships, has reached 400,953 people across the UK. The exact dates that Monet’s The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil will go on display in South Shields have yet to be announced.
The artist was living in Argenteuil, close to Paris, when he painted it – the ‘petit bras’ of its title referencing the ‘small branch’ of the river in the scene – and he was said to have been attracted by the boating life of its quieter area before, in later years, focusing his art more upon its touristy spots.
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