Visitor's Guide to the Yale Center for British Art

Paul Mellon lived an incomparable life of wealth and privilege. The son of the banker and industrialist Andrew Mellon, who was one of the wealthiest people in America in the Roaring Twenties, the younger Mellon grew up on the English countryside, and later studied at Cambridge. The experience instilled in him an enduring love of British culture.

Though he declined to join his father in business, he followed the elder Mellon's philanthropic example and became a patron of the arts. Upon his father's death, he donated well over 100 paintings to fill a new wing of the National Gallery in Washington that his family financed. Spurred by this involvement, Mellon began to collect artwork himself, and soon amassed an impressive collection of his own.

In 1966, Mellon emulated his father by donating a building, his formidable collection, and a sizable endowment to his alma mater, Yale University. The resulting Yale Center for British Art is the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.

Located on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, the museum's permanent collection features nearly 2,000 paintings. While the majority of them are by British artists such as William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and J. M. W. Turner, the collection includes works done by other notable artists working at the behest of British patrons, or during their own residency in England. As result, the Yale Center features works by masters such as Rubens and Van Dyck, and even Americans such as John Singleton Copley and James McNeill Whistler.

In addition to the expected exhibitions of portraits, the museum is well-known for its collections that reflected the particular taste of Mr. Mellon. There's a compelling collection of British landscapes, for instance. A large number of what were called "conversation pieces" is also featured. These smaller, more intimate pieces showed subjects in a more informal light than traditional portraits, and were popular in the mid 1700s. Mellon's personal interest is also evident in the collection of animal and sporting paintings considered among the finest in the world. Here, visitors will see an array of equestrian and foxhunting scenes that are immediately recognizable as examples of uniquely British art.

But the Yale Center for British Art includes much more than paintings. The exhibits include selections from over 20,000 watercolors and drawings and more than 30,000 prints. The sculpture collection includes more than 100 works, ranging from the 15^th to the 20^th century. The rare book department houses more than 30,000 volumes as well, including some of the very first books printed in the English language.

The Yale Center for British Art is located at 1080 Chapel Street in New Haven, Connecticut, adjacent to the New Haven Green on the Yale University campus. It is open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission is free.