Yale Center for British Art Will Close for Renovations

Yale Center for British Art fourth-floor galleries. Photo: Richard Caspole.

Beginning in January, the Yale Center of British Art (YCBA) in New Haven, Connecticut, will be closed for an interior conservation, expected to last just over a year. The university has been studying its historic building, designed by Louis I. Kahn, for over a decade in anticipation of this project.

“This second phase of our building conservation project allows us to refresh public spaces, including the galleries and Lecture Hall, and to make important behind-the-scenes improvements,” YCBA director Amy Meyers said in a statement. “We are taking advantage of this opportunity to rethink the installation of our magnificent collection, as well. This will include the reconfiguration of the Long Gallery on the fourth floor, bringing it back to Louis Kahn’s original conception as a study gallery, as well as the addition of a much needed, adjacent collections seminar room.”

The museum will mark its February 2016 reopening with a special exhibition showcasing a gift from the Libra Foundation of modern British paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the collection of Rhoda Pritzker. The second and fourth floors will be re-installed with the museum’s existing collection, largely donated by Paul Mellon, Yale College Class of 1929 and the center’s founder.

While the museum is closed, it will mount an exhibition across the street at the Yale University Art Gallery titled “The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art, 1760–1860,” incorporating other works from the collection into the gallery’s European art displays. The Center will also lend pieces from its collections to a number of national and international museums during its hiatus, so there will still be ample opportunity to appreciate the museum’s collection while its doors are shut. Even so, if British art’s your thing, you may want to make that day trip (see artnet News list) before the end of the year, or postpone until at least 2016.


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