Steve McQueen’s Tate Britain project is based on another artist's idea, ex-British Council director claims

Steve McQueen’s ambitious project to photograph every Year 3 pupil in London is based on the idea of another artist who started working in schools 14 years ago, a former British Council director has claimed.

Andrea Rose has questioned the originality of the Academy Award winning film director's venture, in which he is hoping to create a single large-scale installation at Tate Britain using the faces of thousands of seven-year-old pupils.

Ms Rose, who was the British Council's head of visual arts for 20 years before she stepped down in 2014, said that she thought that the idea was based on another project by Julian Germain. 

But the Tate dismissed Ms Rose's notion, first aired in The Art Newspaper, and insisted McQueen is making a "very different" piece of work.

Mr Germain, who is based in Northumberland, said he started photographing schoolchildren in their classrooms as part of a project called “The Future Is Ours”, which he launched in 2004.

Andrea Rose, the former director of visual arts at the British Council said: “When I read the Tate’s announcement it just seemed so obvious that it was very like Julian’s work in the area.

“This is quite a specific project. I don’t want to take anything away from Steve, but I do think Julian was the first to come up with this idea.”

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Germain, 56 said that he finds the situation “uncomfortable”.

“I first became aware of Steve’s project when I started getting emails saying “what the hell is this? And people getting angry on my behalf. 

“It’s not copyright infringement, it’s more that the conversations around it are pretty much identical. I don’t think Steve McQueen is familiar with my work, but a lot of people connected this project to my work.

“I suppose my classroom project came first, so It is slightly uncomfortable for me. 

"My project didn’t make it to London and didn’t really get noticed at a wider level, so now this McQueen project is being treated as a new concept when it’s not. Some of the essential ideas are the same.

Speaking about his work, Mr Germain explained how his school portraits are very specific and shot using slow shutter speeds. 

“It’s not easy photographing them in the way that I do. It’s more like Victorian photography with a long shutter speed, than modern techniques.

“Seaham was one of my first pieces. I was contacted by a creative agency for the project and I wanted it to be inclusive of every child and document the school environment at the same time.

“It’s quite astonishing that these kids were five in 2004 and they will have left school by now. Indeed some of them may have children of their own.

“In a book published in 2012, there were 65 of my school portraits in there, I also talked about all of the different possibilities that are in front of these people. In my archive I have 500 school portraits from 120 schools I visited. Some of them will turn out to be criminals, leaders, millionaires, happy people, sad people, there will be a whole spread in there.”

In September, it was announced McQueen would co-ordinate a landmark project to photograph every seven-year-old in London for a Tate Britain installation, the gallery hoped it would help a whole new generation feel part of the art world.

The project could include up to 115,000 children across London’s 2,410 primary schools.

At the launch, McQueen said: “There’s an urgency to reflect on who we are and our future.”

A joint statement from Artangel and Tate said: “Julian Germain made a very intriguing project. Steve McQueen is making a very different one now. Both projects involve portraits of children or students in classrooms, but that’s as far as the comparison goes. 

“The children in McQueen’s project are all at primary schools in a particular city, London; they are all a particular age and in a particular class, year 3; and they are all being photographed in a particular way.”

Steve McQueen could not be reached for comment.