Yale Center for British Art Paintings and Sculpture Department records

The Paintings and Sculpture department is responsible for a collection of approximately 2,000 paintings and 200 sculptures. Particularly strong in the period from 1700–1850, the collection ranges from a medieval Nottingham alabaster to works by contemporary artists. Thanks to the special interests of founder Paul Mellon, the Center also has one of the greatest collections of British sporting and animal paintings in the world. It was known as the Paintings department until 1996, when the scope was expanded to include sculpture.

Major exhibitions produced by the department have included "The Grosvenor Gallery: A Palace of Art in Victorian England" (1996), "This Other Eden: British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale" (1998, the Center’s largest ever traveling exhibition), and "Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century" (2013).