WHSmith uses Bridgeman Contemporary Artists for all 12 images in the new 2008 Britain in Art calendar

• Calendar presents fresh and exciting selection of British scenes by contemporary artists
• Bridgeman provides WHSmith with effective 'one stop shop' service for image selection, licensing and rights clearance

LONDON - 01 November, 2007 - WH Smith PLC, one of the UK's leading retail groups, is launching its new 2008 Britain in Art calendar - an annual top seller - across 468 UK stores. All 12 images have been sourced from the Bridgeman Art Library, the renowned fine art image library, presenting a fresh, exciting selection of British scenes by contemporary artists, including Harvest Moon over Sutton Montis by James Lynch and Bulls at Balmoral by Tim Scott Bolton, all available for licensing at bridgemanart.com.

Bridgeman Art Library has worked with WHSmith over a number of years to source images for its branded products. The retailer benefits from Bridgeman's 'one stop shop' service that covers image selection, licensing and rights clearance. Bridgeman delivers easy, rapid rights clearance and in many instances, does not need to contact the artist who can rely on Bridgeman's skilled account managers to ensure that their artwork is used in an appropriate way.

Victoria Chesterman is Product and Packaging Design Executive at WHSmith: "For the 2008 Britain in Art calendar, we wanted to showcase a selection of works of art that aren't necessarily well known to the general public, but that show off British beauty spots in all their glory. It was a natural choice then, for us to turn to Bridgeman which has an unparalleled collection of fine art images from across all countries, periods and genres. It’s quite unusual for us to source an entire calendar from a single library but Bridgeman is such a complete resource, we didn’t need to look elsewhere.

"Another benefit of working with Bridgeman is that it totally handles copyright clearance and does so quickly and efficiently. We at WHSmith have peace of mind that any picture we choose is clear for us to use and that when we are quoted a price, it already includes copyright and reproduction fees. The fact that Bridgeman came in with a competitive price was also important to us: we produce around 150 different calendars each year so it’s vital that we minimise costs but maximise choice for our customers," Victoria Chesterman continued.

Bridgeman Contemporary Artists
Bridgeman works with over 500 contemporary artists and 15,000 contemporary works of art, providing a 'one stop shop' for image buyers. New artists at the forefront of the art scene, yet with commercial appeal, are being sourced all the time and new artwork is added daily to www.bridgemanart.com. For exciting, affordable easy-to-license contemporary art, key in '!cont'  followed by the keyword of your choice.

Note to Editors: to view a selection of the calendar images please click here

<sub>About WH Smith PLC
WH Smith PLC is one of the UK's leading retail groups with 544 high street stores and 309 travel units at airport, train station and motorway service area locations across the UK selling a wide range of newspapers, magazines, stationery, books and entertainment products.

About The Bridgeman Art Library (BAL)
Established for 35 years and with four international offices, The Bridgeman Art Library is the world's leading source of fine art, history and culture with some 300,000 images available on-line, plus 750,000 historical photographs, from 8000 locations. It represents museums, galleries and artists throughout the world by providing a central source of fine art for image users.

BAL also develops educational resource packages, publishes art catalogues, offers copyright advice, licenses reproduction rights and provides sales services. The organisation has a long history of feeding monies back into museums, of figures up to £1.5 million per year.

For more information please visit www.bridgemanart.com</sub>

_{Annabel O'Connor-Fenton
Marketing Executive, Bridgeman Art Library
Tel: 020 7096 1963
Email: annabel.oconnorfenton@bridgeman.co.uk}

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