As those of us who haunt museums are keenly aware, but the general public is probably not, most of the world’s artworks are not on view.
Some, of course, are in private collections, visible to the public only if on loan to museums or in publications. A great percentage, however, is in museum storage. Another significant percentage actually is on view, but not in a way to encourage access by the general public; many publicly owned works hang in government buildings, schools and offices.
In one nation, at least, there is an attempt to bring much of this work to light.
A new initiative by the BBC and the Public Catalogue Foundation aims to make most of the publicly owned work in the UK visible online; seeking to digitize an estimated 200,000 works and make them available on a newly launched website called Your Paintings.