Prints and Drawings
The Department of Prints and Drawings is responsible for more than 20,000 drawings and watercolors, 35,000 prints, and 3,000 photographs from the sixteenth century to now.
Access to the collection while we are closed
While the Yale Center for British Art is closed for conservation work, access to the prints and drawings collection is limited.
Please email ycba.studyroom@yale.edu to discuss availability. Please be aware that appointments are restricted to individuals or small groups, may not always be available, and may be canceled with little or no notice.
Every effort will be made to support class visits which will be evaluated based on the accessibility, quantity, and size of the requested objects.
The collection is wide-ranging, from Tudor drawings and portrait miniatures to outstanding examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century watercolors by notable artists such as William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, and John Constable, to architectural drawings, and works relating to the former British Empire, especially the Subcontinent, the Caribbean, and the African diaspora. The collection has exceptional topographical prints, caricatures, mezzotint portraits, sporting art, and modern and contemporary prints, as well as a growing collection of photographs from the birth of photography to now.
Thomas Rowlandson, An Audience Watching a Play at Drury Lane Theatre (detail), ca. 1785
Study Room
The Study Room provides access to works in the Center’s Prints and Drawings, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and Archives collections. The Study Room is also used for teaching from these collections, and staff members are available for advice on planning classes.
Visitors in the Study Room, Yale Center for British Art, photo by Stephanie Anestis
Featured works
J. M. W. Turner, Mer de Glace, in the Valley of Chamouni, Switzerland, 1803
Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA), Fake Death Picture (Death of Chatterton—Henry Wallis), 2011
Explore the Center's Collections
Contact the Prints and Drawings department at ycba.prints@yale.edu
ycba.studyroom@yale.edu | +1 203 432 2840 | +1 203 432 7314 fax