Council sells art to pay for culture

Southampton City Council is planning to sell off important works of art to help fund a cultural quarter.

The sale of the pieces by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin and the British painter Sir Alfred Munnings should help pay for about a third of the £15m centre that will also house a museum to the Titanic.

The council said the centre would allow more of its 3,500-piece collection of British 20th and 21st century art to be displayed. The art collection, worth £180m, is considered the third most significant outside London, behind Birmingham and Manchester. It has works by Turner, Lowry, Monet and Antony Gormley.

The works will first be offered to galleries and then private collectors and, if the price is not right, to the public by auction.