Our Story

The museum’s collections include more than 2,000 paintings, 250 sculptures, 20,000 drawings and watercolors, 40,000 prints, and 35,000 rare books and manuscripts dating from the fifteenth century to the present. More than 40,000 volumes supporting research in British art and related fields are available in the Reference Library. The collection is rich with historic works by John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Stubbs, and J. M. W. Turner, as well as works by major artists of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, including Hurvin Anderson, Francis Bacon, Vanessa Bell, Sonia Boyce, Cecily Brown, Barbara Hepworth, Anish Kapoor, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Yinka Shonibare, and Barbara Walker.

One of the museum's greatest treasures is the building itself. Opened to the public in 1977, the Yale Center for British Art is the last building designed by the internationally acclaimed American architect Louis I. Kahn. The structure integrates the dual functions of study center and gallery, while providing an environment for works of art that is appropriately elegant and dignified. The building stands across the street from Kahn’s first major commission, the Yale University Art Gallery (1953). Located in downtown New Haven, the YCBA is near many of the city’s best restaurants, theaters, and shops.

The Yale Center for British Art is committed to engaging a diverse range of perspectives in dialogue with British art and history. For more information on Yale University’s efforts to enhance diversity, support equity, and promote an environment of welcome, inclusion, and respect, visit Belonging at Yale.

Yale University and the Yale Center for British Art acknowledge that Indigenous people and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking people, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these people and nations and this land.