WORKS of art collecting dust in vaults below Southampton's civic centre face being sold under plans outlined by the city council today.

As revealed in the Daily Echo earlier this month, council leisure bosses say it is time to sell off works from Southampton City Art Gallery's overflowing £150m collection.

Only 200 of the vast 3,500 collection can be shown in the gallery at any one time and some works have scarcely seen the light of day in recent years.

Curators have been instructed to identify which works are surplus to requirements and could be sold at a profit to reinvest back into the gallery to fund new purchases and staff resources.

The review will identify works as being either highly significant, significant or not significant to the core collection. Items deemed as not significant will then be considered for sale.

Councillor John Hannides, Cabinet member for leisure and culture, has already promised masterpieces by artists such as Turner, Lowry, Picasso and Monet would stay in Southampton.

Any art donated, bequeathed, bought with charitable trust grants or loaned to the city would also not go under the hammer.

However, Liberal Democrat leisure spokesman Steve Sollitt warned selling off some of the collection could jeopardise external funding.

"We have to be very careful what we do. There may well be pieces of art that may be deemed as having a low level of value, but if we are going to go down that route we are likely to have issues impacting on our external funding," Cllr Sollitt said.

"I do have concerns about us doing that because we as a council should look at what ways to display art rather than look to dispose of it."

Cllr Hannides said any art sold would meet with the requirements of major public funders such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Arts Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Association.

In a long-term move to make the collection a commercial success, high quality limited edition prints of some of the gallery's masterpieces will also be sold to collectors for hundreds or even thousands of pounds.

The gallery will also launch an aggressive marketing campaign to lease works to private businesses.

Profits from the two initiatives will fill city council coffers to fund new culture projects across Southampton and cover the cost of insuring the collection - estimated at £50,000 annually.

The council's current target for art revenue is £30,000 - but it is hoped up to £100,000 could be generated next year.

The collection, which spans six centuries from the Renaissance to present day, is one of the best outside of London.

Its value has soared by £20m over the past five years with new purchases and the appreciating value of sought-after works.