A man who stood against leading Cabinet minister Michael Gove in this year’s General Election will see his work presented at Yorkshire Sculpture Park this autumn.

Oddly-named artist-cum-political agitator Bob and Roberta Smith, aka Patrick Brill, campaigns for Art for All.

Focusing on 100 years of art education, from 1914 to the modern day, he invites ideas and responses toward an art curriculum for a digital 21st century.

The exhibition in the Garden Gallery takes visitors on a journey through the history of art education, using key material, selected by him, from the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA), which is based at Bretton.

Established in 1985, the archive documents the development of arts education in the UK since the 19th century.

Drawn from the vast collections of the NAEA – which Smith explored as a visiting artist earlier in the year – the exhibition documents touchstones and turning points throughout the history of art education, progressing through seven chosen movements. These include The Child Art and Basic Design collections.

Bob and Roberta Smith aka Patrick Brill gets ready for his new exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Bob and Roberta Smith aka Patrick Brill gets ready for his new exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

The original artwork for A.E. Halliwell’s iconic travel posters also feature, along with paintings and prints, produced in the 1920s, by the pupils of Franz Cizek.

The Garden Gallery display begins in the 1700s with the book, Reynolds Discourses by influential painter Joshua Reynolds, and culminates with the question ‘How can we build a curricula fit for the 21st century?’, to which visitors are invited to respond.

Bob and Roberta Smith said: “The NAEA is one of the great repositories of material relating to the development of the arts in the post war era. It’s also a place of hope.

“To look through the material and understand the competing initiatives and investigations by artists and teachers in that period is to recharge one’s batteries.

“Art for All celebrates this and asks the question: what must we do now to reinvigorate art education at all levels and once more get kids excited about inventing the future?”

Take a look at some of the YSP's most memorable exhibits below.