Description: | The Fine Art Collections comprise approximately 1,200 oil paintings, 8,500 prints, 10,000 watercolours and drawings representing 900 artists in 7 schools Ã- Norwich, British, Dutch and Flemish, Rembrandt etchings, modern and contemporary.
Norwich School of Artists is the most comprehensive collection of the work of the Norwich School existing and covers 3 generations of 50 artists who form the nucleus of the School. 22 oils by John Crome (1768-1821) are in the collection and a group of his very rare watercolours and drawings. John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) is represented with 36 oils and 800 watercolours and drawings. The more prominent artists represented are Robert Ladbrooke, John Berney Ladbrooke, James Stark, George Vincent, John Berney Crome and William Henry Crome, Joseph and Alfred Stannard, William and John Cantiloe Joy, Emily and Eloise Harriet Stannard and Emily Crome, James Sillett, Henry Bright, Frederick Sandys, John Thirtle, Miles Edmund and John Joseph Cotman, Henry Ninham, Rev E. T. Daniell, John Middleton,
British School paintings include A Family Picture: Henry and Mary Styleman (1780-83), by Johann Zoffany, Sawrey Gilpin and Joseph Farington, works by John Wootton, Henry Walton, a terracotta sculpture by J. M. Roubilliac of Sir Andrew Fountaine, Thomas Gainsborough, Richard Wilson, David Roberts, G. F. Watts and Edward Burne-Jones.
Collection of 100 Civic Portraits dating from the late 16th to 20th century, mainly Mayors of Norwich and local M.P.s and other dignitaries by artisits such as Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence, William Beechey, John Opie, William Orpen, Hubert von Herkomer and an early miniature of a Mayor of Norwich by Nicholas Hilliard;
20th century artisits include Sir Arnesby Brown, Sir Alfred Munnings and Edward Seago. Dutch and Flemish School has 60 works including the Ashwellthorpe Triptych of c. 1512-20 by the Master of the Legend of the Magdalen, works by Meindert Hobbema, Jan van Goyen, Peter Breughel, Jan Siberechts, Abraham Begeijn, Tobias Verhaecht, Rembrandt, Andries and the Patteson Collection includes 10 works by Peter Tillemans, Abraham Hondius, Salomon Rombouts and Orizonte.
The Percy Moore Turner collection of 100 Rembrandt etchings is considered the 4th most important collection in the country after the British Museum, Ashmolean and the Fitzwilliam Museum.
British watercolours include Cotman and Norwich School but also include early and late works by J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, David Cox, Peter de Wint, Paul Sandby, Francis Towne, Thomas Girtin, William Havell, Edward Dayes, Thomas Rowlandson, Samuel Palmer and Humphry Repton. Also 25 watercolours from the choice Bradfer-Lawrence Collection, including works by Adam Buck, Thomas Daniell, Thomas Hearne, George Fennel Robson, Michael Angelo Rooker and Francis Wheatley. There are later Victorian watercolours from the James William Walker gift made in 1896 of 900 watercolours.
The small modern collection has works by Alfred Sisley, George Clausen, Gwen John, W. R. Sickert, T. F. Goodall, Kees van Dongen, Marie Laurencin, Auguste Rodin, Emil Nolde, Picabia, Louis Marcoussis, Max Ernst, Chagall, Magritte, Vlaminck, David Bomberg, Wyndham Lewis, Horace Brodzky and Roland Penrose and Edouard Vuillard.
The contemporary art collection has Michael Andrews, Colin Self, Mary Potter, Edward Middleditch, John Wonnacott, Ana Maria Pacheco, Allen Jones, Alan Davie, Terry Frost, Bridget Riley, Howard Hodgkin, Lucian Freud, David Hockney and etchings by Eduardo Paolozzi and Henry Moore.
The Topographical collection is several thousands of prints and drawings relating to Norfolk and Norwich mainly from the Todd Collection and the Rev James BulwerÃ's Norfolk collection. The Todd Collection is 26 boxes of hundreds of prints and drawings of the buildings of Norfolk based on Francis BlomefieldÃ's History of Norfolk. The importance of this collection has increased following the loss of the Colman and Rye Collections previously housed in Norwich Central Library (destroyed by fire in 1995). The Bulwer Collection comprises well over 2,000 watercolours compiled by the Rev James Bulwer, an amateur artist frien of Cotman. |