A CHARITY which brought professional artists into schools for more than a decade has been forced to close for lack of funding.

Since it was established as an off-shoot of Artweeks in 1998, more than 200 residencies have been organised by Kids@Art – with more than 40,000 children taking part across Oxfordshire.

But the charity, founded by Lady Mary Moser, has decided to call it a day after funds dried up.

Trustee Barberine Mallett said: “We were a very well-run charity in that our administrative costs were quite low, but we did need to raise about £20,000 a year to run the residencies.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the charitable funds we rely upon have been hit by the recession and we realised we weren’t going to be raising enough to run enough residencies for it to make sense.”

The organisation used to run week-long residencies in primary, secondary and special schools across the county.

Many produced permanent artwork as a lasting legacy.

The final project, in September, was a mural at Northern House Special School, in Summertown, Oxford.

Ms Mallett said: “It is terribly sad because we did go into places like special schools which not many other organisations do.

“Sometimes you have children in a school who do not do so well academically or perhaps have problems at home, but when you take them out to do a willow sculpture or something like that, they get a chance to shine.”

About 60 different artists have been involved, working in a huge variety of different media, from mosaics and sculpture to film-making and music.

A recent scheme, supported by The Orders of St John’s Care Trust, paired children with elderly care home residents.

Lady Moser said rather than focusing on the loss of the scheme, she wanted to celebrate the charity’s achievements over the past 11 years.

She said: “While we are obviously sad that we are not able to continue, we are proud of the impact our work has had on so many children and their communities.”

Wolvercote Primary School in Oxford had two residencies through the scheme, most recently in 2007 when a mosaic was created.

Headteacher Anna Ballance said: “It is a real shame. The mosaic at the front of the school is really effective and will be here for a long time.

“I don’t think we could ever have done it without Kids@Art.

“The situation is going to get tighter for all of us so it is a double whammy. Schools won’t necessarily be able to afford it because we will all have less in our budgets.”