National Gallery inspired art by children takes to the streets of Westminster

11 June – 31 August 2025
The Roden Centre for Creative Learning; Jubilee Walk; St James’s Market Pavilion

This summer will see the National Gallery’s flagship primary school programme, Take One Picture, bursting beyond the walls of the Gallery and into three nearby locations around Westminster. Each year, children from across the UK and beyond respond creatively to a single National Gallery painting, using it as inspiration for imaginative exploration across the school curriculum. This year’s painting is Pieter de Hooch’s The Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658).
 
Presenting the work of pupils from 40 schools across three sites in and around the National Gallery, this year’s exhibition takes the form of artwork displays and a digital augmented reality (AR) trail. The starting point for the digital experience will be Jubilee Walk, situated outside of the newly reopened Sainsbury Wing, where people will be invited to use their mobile devices to explore children's artwork from four selected schools, brought to life through AR and co-created with the participating schools.
  
The AR trail builds on the Gallery's commitment to finding innovative digital ways to both create with and engage new audiences. The production process centred on a series of co-creation workshops at each of the schools, designed to enable the young artists to create new digital layers of interpretation for their work and consider how they might be experienced by Gallery visitors. The workshops included the use of motion capture system Move AI as well as 3D scanning, text-to-3D modelling and voice AI, bringing the children's artworks to life in a variety of fun, creative ways. This immersive, web-based experience for mobiles and tablets is powered by 8th Wall and was led and produced by award-winning emergent tech game studio, 1UP Studios. 

Physical artworks are on display at St James’s Market Pavilion, a space generously donated by The Crown Estate for this project, and in the Gallery’s Roden Centre for Creative Learning. St James’s Market Pavilion showcases a wide range of creative and imaginative projects. Artworks have come from children’s own ideas and questions about the painting, such as ‘What does the plaque say?’, ‘What are the people doing?’ and ‘I wonder what the house looks like from the front?’ 

At the Gallery’s Roden Centre for Creative Learning, further physical artworks will be on show, as well as a digital display of photographs and film capturing even more of the children’s responses to the painting. One Painting, Many Voices will be projected in the Centre’s Welcome Space, a film in which children from two exhibiting schools discuss everything from the buildings, the people in the painting to how the artist might have worked, and many more questions that sparked their imaginations.

This year, over 83,000 children from 380 schools took part in the Take One Picture programme – our biggest ever cohort for the programme’s 30th anniversary year. Take One Picture aims to put art at the centre of children’s learning across the curriculum, inspiring creativity, curiosity and a lifelong connection with artists’ work. By exhibiting a selection of the projects produced, the programme also provides a platform for celebrating children’s work, building pride and confidence in their achievements, and fostering a sense of ownership and belonging in the Gallery. 

This year’s painting, Pieter de Hooch’s 'The Courtyard of a House in Delft', shows de Hooch’s skills in painting architecture but it is also a portrayal of tender family relationships. De Hooch was a master of the depiction of structure, of perspective and of the detail of objects and textures. He was also a master of the perceptive portrayal of human relationships, so subtly revealed in this painting. He has placed the child and maid in the area of the courtyard closest to nature, and their linked hands suggest that we are witness to a private, intimate moment between the two – a child who loves and is loved in return.

This year’s exhibition takes the display outside the walls of the Gallery and into our local community and celebrates welcoming people into the Roden Centre for Creative Learning, which opened earlier this year. Part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary capital projects, the Centre enables the Gallery to engage with an additional 50,000 learners annually, resulting in 246,000 learners benefiting from the learning programme in total each year. 

The Welcome Space in the Roden Centre for Creative Learning is open each weekend and throughout the summer holidays with activities inspired directly by the exhibition. During the first two weeks of August, we’re inviting families to join workshops with artists every weekday, Monday to Friday. 

Karen Eslea, Head of Learning and National Programmes at the National Gallery, said ‘Creative Learning is crucial to children’s development, and after 30 years this national project is more important than ever. All the children involved are empowered to explore the painting in a way that is relevant to their lives, and many of them have helped us to develop and deliver the project, and to inspire others. It is a wonderful example of how the National Gallery is supporting artists of the future and is committed to the life enriching power of the arts for all.’

Tim Allibone, Head of Portfolio Management for St James’s at The Crown Estate, said: ‘The Take One Picture programme gives us a unique opportunity to bring pockets of the National Gallery to the heart of the West End. It is a great privilege to showcase the children's artwork in St James's Market, giving visitors the chance to view masterpieces through the eyes of a child, only a stone's throw away from the iconic Gallery.’

Take One Picture is sponsored by Columbia Threadneedle Investments and generously supported by Columbia Threadneedle Foundation.

With support from the John Armitage Charitable Trust and The Steel Charitable Trust

Notes to editors

Image caption

Pieter de Hooch, 'The Courtyard of a House in Delft', 1658  
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 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 approximately 2,300 people including approximately 550 investment professionals based in North America, Europe and Asia, it manages £481bn assets (at 31 March 2025) 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.

columbiathreadneedle.com

For more information

National Gallery Press Office on 020 7747 2865 or email National Gallery Press Office press.external@nationalgallery.org.uk  
Publicity images can be obtained from https://press.nationalgallery.org.uk/ 

Schools represented in the exhibition:

Brighton College Prep School, Brighton 
Bruern Abbey School, Oxfordshire 
Dalmilling Primary School, Scotland 
Downshall Primary School, London 
Falconer's Hill Academy, Northamptonshire 
Field End Infant School, London 
Framfield CofE Primary School, East Sussex 
Gateway School, Buckinghamshire 
Headlands Primary School, Northampton 
Hill Top CofE Primary School, Bradford 
Hill View Junior Academy, Sunderland 
Hockley Primary School, Essex 
King's College Murcia, Spain 
King's Meadow Primary School, Oxfordshire 
Mab's Cross Primary School, Wigan 
Moreland Primary School, London 
Nelson Mandela School, Birmingham 
Northmead Junior School, Guildford  
Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Primary School, Doncaster 
Outwood Primary Academy Alne, North Yorkshire 
Outwood Primary Academy Park Hill, West Yorkshire 
Parkhill Junior School, London 
Pineham Barns Primary School, Northampton 
Quay Academy, East Yorkshire 
Queenborough School, Isle of Sheppey 
RGS The Grange, Worcester 
Snaresbrook Primary School, London 
Southam Primary School, Warwickshire 
Sheffield Girls' High School, Yorkshire 
Swiss Cottage School, London 
The Priory C of E Primary School, London 
The Sele First School, Northumberland 
Thorplands Primary School, Northampton 
Trinity Primary Academy, London 
Tweedmouth Prior Park First School, Northumberland 
Two Mile Ash Primary School, Milton Keynes 
Warley Road Primary Academy, West Yorkshire 
Wellington Prep School, Somerset 
Willow Grove Primary School, Bedfordshire 
Woodford Valley Primary Academy, Wiltshire