Yale Center for British Art

The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University houses the most extensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.

The collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, rare books, and manuscripts reflects the development of British art and culture starting from the Elizabethan period.

The Center is based in a facility with matte steel and reflective glass for the exterior, and the interior is made of travertine marble, white oak, and Belgian linen.

The building’s design and sky-lit rooms combine to provide an environment where the art can be viewed in diffused natural light.

The collection consists of nearly 2,000 paintings and 200 sculptures, with an emphasis on the period between William Hogarth’s birth (1697) to J. M. W. Turner’s death (1851).

The collection also has works by artists from Europe and North America who lived and worked in Britain.

These include Hans Holbein, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Canaletto, John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, and James McNeill Whistler.

The areas of emphasis in the collections include:

Portraits
Landscape Paintings
Sporting and Animal Paintings
Marine Paintings
London Cityscapes
Travel Art
Scenes of Shakespearean Plays
Sculpture

The collection of 20,000 drawings and watercolors and 31,000 prints features British sporting art and figure drawings.

The Center’s collection of rare books and manuscripts comprises 35,000 volumes, including maps, atlases, sporting books, and archival material of British artists.

A Lion Attacking a Horse by George Stubbs, 1762

Highlights of the Yale Center for British Art

The Peace Embracing the Abundance, Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1632-1633
The Gravenor Family, by Thomas Gainsborough, 1754
A Lion Attacking a Horse, by George Stubbs, 1762
Mrs. Abington as Miss Prue in “Love for Love” by William Congreve, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1771
A Paddle-steamer in a Storm, watercolor by J. M. W. Turner, ca. 1841
Street Scene in Chorley, Lancashire, with a view of Chorley Hall, by John Bird of Liverpool, ca. 1795
Lovers in a landscape, Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot, ca. 1740
A collection of early maps and atlases

Westminster Bridge, with the Lord Mayor’s Procession on the Thames by Canaletto, 1747