Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has earmarked £1.1m for a programme of events, exhibitions and education activities called ‘Imagine a Nation’.

The activities, lead by Tyne & Wear museums (TWM), aim to show what it means to be British in the 20th century.

The four-year programme will be available to people of all ages and backgrounds showing them 500 years of British art, which they will have an unprecedented insight to.

TWM has joined forces with Tate Britain, Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service and Sheffield galleries & museum Trust for the campaign.

Newcastle’s Laing art gallery will be holding an exhibition on the life and work of the 19th century artist, John Martin; lately his oil paintings have been compared with Sci-fi illustrations and heavy metal music.

In Sheffield there will be an exhibition held on the first half of the 20th Century.

London’s Tate Britain will host an exhibition focusing on watercolour paintings, an archetypal British medium.

In Norwich there will be an exhibition on families, exploring the way they have changed, looking at the regional, cultural, ethical and economical diversity of Britain over the last 500 years.

Director of TWM, Alec Coles, said: “The aim of this project is to use the museums’ world class collections to engage a wide audience with their British heritage.”

Carole Souter, director of HLF, said: “This Heritage Lottery Fund grant will show how our collective identity has been influenced by numerous other nationalities and is designed to encourage people to take part in an important debate about British art and nationhood.”

The four partners aim to attract 5.8m visitors to a dedicated website, accessing an estimated 80,000 works of at with the opportunity to create their own online exhibition.