Rewired PR | Case Studies | Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Utmost Fidelity: The Painting Lives of Marianne and Adrian Stokes was the first retrospective exhibition of the two artists, who spent the best part of forty years travelling across Europe, drawing upon their experiences for inspiration.
Whilst Adrian was best known for his landscapes, Marianne concentrated on religious art and portraiture. One of her most famous paintings, Madonna and Child 1909, is part of Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s collection and adorned the Christmas first class stamp in 2005.
Although they never painted together, the Stokes’ work did stand side by side in three seminal exhibitions throughout their time. Their joint venture, Hungary, a publication containing 75 illustrations from their Eastern European travels, celebrates its centenary in 2009.
‘Utmost Fidelity’ is a joint collaboration between Wolverhampton Art Gallery and freelance art curator Magdalen Evans, who is also the Stokes’ great-great niece. In addition, Magdalen released a book about their lives and works, which was released to coincide with the exhibition opening.
Rewired was brought on board to support the marketing and communications team at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and to deliver the national PR Campaign for the exhibition. The targets for the campaign included coverage in national newspapers and supplements, specialist art titles, online media and international titles.

Once on board, Rewired worked closely with the marketing team at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Magdalen Evans to outline the objectives and key activity for the campaign.
Rewired created an extensive press list, which included national newspapers and supplements, specialist art titles, lifestyle magazines, listings, religion-specific titles, online sources and broadcast media.
Although we were focussing on the national campaign, we also offered assistance in gaining regional coverage.
A press pack was created and distributed to all contacts on the press list. This included an initial press release, the Stokes’ biographies and a selection of images of their work.
We also hosted an exhibition preview on 29 January 2009, giving a number of key press the opportunity to exclusively view the exhibition before it opened to the public.

Throughout the campaign, coverage was achieved in national newspapers and supplements, specialist art magazines and consumer titles, online arts sources and listings, international media and religious titles.
We achieved coverage in a range of publications, including British Art Journal, The Art Newspaper, Art of England, Tate Etc and Leisure Painter. In addition, we also secured coverage in wider consumer titles, such as World of Interiors, The Spectator and In Britain.
The total advertising value equivalent of the Wolverhampton Art Gallery campaign was £93,772.01.