First, thank you so much to everyone who submitted an idea for our Family Matters show either here, on facebook or twitter. We were quite overwhelmed by your thoughts and reminiscences about the family and how you felt about the artworks in our collection.

We printed out every single artwork and took them to a big team meeting, where Tabitha Barber and teams from learning, interpretation and online (that’s me) took a look at all of them.

After whittling down a little we’ve come to a shortlist of works that not only will be featured in the taster this year, but that also may go into the final show next year. I hope you’re as excited about this as we are!

It was your comments that helped us form our decision. Thank you. Now it’s a matter of some more hard work and logistics to see which works will fit together (physically – some are tiny, some huge!), which are available and other considerations that are part of the normal routine of putting on an exhibition here at Tate.

So for now, I can’t divulge which ones we’ve chosen, but I hope you’ll continue to read this blog and look out for the result of your recommendations, as well as further ways you’ll be able to get involevd with Family Matters!

What matters to you about family? Do you feel that your family life is represented in art?

Next year Tate Britain is going to host a Great British Art Debate display called Family Matters, looking at representations of the family in British art. We’re also going to have a little taster of the display to whet your appetite, which will be on show from 21 November this year until May 2012.

Here’s where you come in. We have a space at Tate Britain for this ‘taster’, where we’ll show 4 works that address the theme of Family Matters. Nominate one artwork from our collection, and tell us why it means family to you. The exhibition team will then choose their favourite images and comments, which will be displayed together on the walls of Tate Britain!

We’ve created a handy slideshow of works that include family themes for you to look through, and there are some examples below. (The slideshow uses a test version of Art & Artists, our new collection exploring tool – if you have any comments or spot any bugs you’ll be helping us to refine it, so pop them along as well!)

Tabitha Barber, Curator of 17th & 18th Century British Art, will be reviewing all of your ideas. She says, “I’m intrigued to see what our facebook and twitter fans have to say about their families and the families in our collection. We haven’t offered the choice of artwork to the public in this way before, so it’s very exciting to see where you will lead us in our decisions for this display.”

This is your chance to really get involved with the art that’s being shown at Tate!

Here are some works to get you started…

The Last Day in the Old Home (1862), Robert Martineau

This family is facing the consequences of a spendthrift lifestyle. Their posessions are marked up to be sold at auction, and by the looks of the painting of a horse and rider in the left foreground, it was the father’s fondness for betting on horse races that did it… and his son seems to be following in his footsteps.

Mrs James Wyatt Jr and her Daughter Sarah (circa 1850), John Everett Millais

This work by Millais contrasts his own stark, realistic depiction of the mother and child with Raphael’s, which is visible in miniature in this protrait’s background.

'The Smith Family, Fife, Scotland 1989' © Thomas Struth

Struth was travelling a great deal in order to photograph buildings around the world, and staying with different families in each place. At the end of his stay, he would take a photograph of the family to remember them. He used long exposure times, meaning the subjects had to sit very still to avoid blurring the photo – creating an effect much like older, formal portrait photography.

Have you ever tried painting with watercolour? Have you been put off because you feel like you have to be really exact and perfect? We worked with students from Archbiship Tenison School in London to ask artists and illustrators about their techniques for using watercolours, and made a series of films to show that using watercolour can mean loads of different outcomes – not just the super-precise style that you might be familiar with!

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