UCL Art Museum

The Collections

Take the UCL Art Museum self-guided tour or view our top ten objects.

Over 10,000 works of art make up the collections of UCL Art Museum, from the 1500s to the present day.

Works separated by centuries are linked by a desire to experiment with new materials, theories, and reproduction techniques in order to produce new meanings, share ideas and inspire.

The experimental spirit is present in early printmaking techniques as used by Rembrandt, studio model books employed in Renaissance artists’ workshops, Neo-classical plaster modelling and pointing machines, the study of the human figure in the life room, Japanese colour woodblocks, screenprinting popular in the 1960s, early computer art of the 1970s and contemporary digital media.

International in scope, many art works relate to the history of teaching art at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art. Outstanding examples often show stages in the creative process, from annotated landscape prints by Turner to torn up sketches by Augustus John saved by his peers, as well as drawings by artists such as John Flaxman, Henry Tonks and William Coldstream used for instruction.

Interdisciplinary teaching and research are core to the museum’s mission, with the research process opened up through one-hour Pop-Up displays curated by UCL academics.

The museum is located in a traditional Print Room at the heart of UCL, its collections publicly accessible through temporary exhibitions and displays across the university campus. The Flaxman Gallery, the pinnacle of a vast collection of art works by Flaxman, showcases the artist’s plaster models in a unique architectural setting.

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