Courtauld Institute of Art - The Courtauld Gallery

The Courtauld Gallery

The art collection at the Institute was begun by its founder, Samuel Courtauld, who presented an extensive collection of mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in 1932, which was enhanced by further gifts in the 1930s and a bequest in 1948. His collection included such masterworks as Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and a version of his Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, Renoir's La Loge, landscapes by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, a ballet scene by Edgar Degas and a group of eight major works by Cézanne. Other paintings include van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Peach Blossoms in the Crau, Gauguin's Nevermore and Te Rerioa, as well as important works by Seurat, Henri "Douanier" Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec and Modigliani. In total, the Gallery contains some 530 paintings and over 26,000 drawings and prints.

Following the death of the eminent art critic Roger Fry in 1934, the Institute received his collection of 20th-century art. Further bequests were added after the World War II, most notably the collection of Old Master paintings assembled by Lord Lee. This included Cranach's Adam and Eve and a sketch in oils by Peter Paul Rubens for what is arguably his masterpiece, the Deposition altarpiece in Antwerp Cathedral. Sir Robert Witt was also an outstanding benefactor to the Courtauld and bequeathed his important collection of Old Master and British drawings in 1952. In 1966 Mark Gambier-Parry bequeathed the diverse collection of art formed by his grandfather, Thomas Gambier Parry, which ranged from Early Italian Renaissance painting to majolica, medieval enamel and ivory carvings and other unusual art forms. Soon after (in 1967), the bequest of Dr. William Wycliffe Spooner (1882–1967) and his wife Mercie, added strength to the Gallery's collection of English watercolors by contributing works by J.R. Cozens and Francis Towne.

In 1974, a group of thirteen watercolours by Turner was presented in memory of Sir Stephen Courtauld, famous for restoring Eltham Palace, and the brother of Samuel Courtauld, one of the founders of the Institute. In 1978 the Courtauld received the Princes Gate Collection of Old Master paintings and drawings formed by Count Antoine Seilern. It includes paintings by Bruegel, Quentin Matsys, Van Dyck and Tiepolo and rivals the Samuel Courtauld Collection in splendour, being strongest in the works of Rubens.The bequest also included a group of 19th- and 20th‑century works by Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Oskar Kokoschka. More recently the Lillian Browse and Alastair Hunter collections have given the Courtauld more late 19th- and 20th‑century paintings, drawings and sculptures.

The Courtauld Gallery is open to the public and housed in the Strand Block of Somerset House, which was the first home for the Royal Academy upon its foundation in 1768. The entrance to the "Great Room", which housed the annual Summer Exhibition, has the formidable inscription "Let no stranger to the Muses enter" in Ancient Greek. From 1958 to 1989 the Courtauld collection was housed in part of the premises of the Warburg Institute in Woburn Square.

The present Head of the Gallery (May 2009) is Dr. Ernst Vegelin.