Welcome to the British Council Collection - a 'Museum Without Walls', for everyone, everywhere

For over 60 years the British Council has been collecting works of art, craft and design to promote the achievements of British artists, craft practitioners and designers overseas. The Collection, started in the late 1930s with a modest group of works on paper, now includes more than 8,500 works covering all media and aspects of British art and design of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Collection has no permanent gallery and has been referred to as a 'Museum Without Walls'.

Featured

  • Michael Craig-Martin: Picturing: Iron, Watch, Pliers, Safety Pin 1978

    Click the arrow above to watch the artist installing his work at the Whitechapel Gallery, London for 'Passports - Great Early Buys from the British Council Collection', 5 April - 14 June 2009

  • Anya Gallaccio: Preserve Beauty (New York) 2003

    500 'Red Beauty' gerberas, glass and fittings. Learn more about the artist and her work.

  • Wood & Harrison: Table and Chairs 2001

    Wood & Harrison: Table and Chairs 2001

    This 26 minute video by the artists Wood & Harrison is on show in Syria as part of the British Council Collection exhibition 'Flicker - A Visual Intervention in the Cityscape of Damascus' from 26 March - 17 April 2009

  • Robert Dawson: Doves 1996

    Robert Dawson: Doves 1996

    27cm diameter print on bone china from the series 'Can you walk from the Garden? Does your heart understand?'

Artists

BLUE ROOM RED COAT ON FLOOR

John Hilliard

John Hilliard was born in Lancaster and studied at the local art school before enrolling in the sculpture school at St Martin’s School of Art in London. His first photographic works were made in the late 1960s to document necessarily transient sculpture installations. Increasingly he became interested in the way…

Themes

Landscape

Landscape

Landscape is one of the principle genres of Western art. In early paintings the landscape was a backdrop for the composition, but in the late 17th Century the appreciation of nature for its own sake began with the French and Dutch painters (from whom the term derived). Their treatment of…

News

News

'The Fifth Curator' - Shortlist Announced

The shortlist for The Fifth Curator competition was announced today by the British Council.

© 2009 British Council

The United Kingdom`s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland).

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