Department of Prints and Drawings
Contact details
Email: prints@britishmuseum.org
Study room bookings:
pdstudyroom@britishmuseum.org
Phone: +44 (0)20 7323 8408
Department of Prints and Drawings
The British Museum
Great Russell Street
London
WC1B 3DG
The Department of Prints and Drawings holds one of the world's greatest works on paper collections.
It consists of about 50,000 drawings and more than two million prints. Together, they chart the development of the graphic arts in Europe from the 1400s to the present day, and their spread to the Americas and Australia.
The collection includes outstanding holdings by the greatest graphic artists, such as Dürer, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Goya, Kollwitz and Picasso. And there are major collections of historical, satirical and topographical prints, trade and visiting cards, fans and playing cards.
History of the collection
The British Museum's collection of Western prints and drawings can be traced back to Sir Hans Sloane, whose wide-ranging holdings included an album of drawings by the German Renaissance master, Albrecht Dürer.
Until the 1830s, the graphic collection expanded largely through bequests (such as the Rembrandt prints left by Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode in 1799), or through gifts – the earliest was from British watercolourist Francis Towne in 1816.
In 1835, the Museum bought John Sheepshanks' collection of Dutch and Flemish prints and drawings. This marked the start of our ambition to collect graphic holdings charting the development and spread of the graphic arts from the 1400s to the present.
The department continues to add contemporary and historic works on paper through gift, bequest and purchase. It is committed to researching and cataloguing and sharing the collection.
Staff
- Hugo Chapman – Simon Sainsbury Keeper of Prints and Drawings
- Catherine Daunt – Hamish Parker Curator of Modern and Contemporary Graphic Art
- Billie Duch Giménez – Project Curator: Exhibitions
- Olenka Horbatsch – Assistant Keeper, Dutch, Flemish and German Prints and Drawings 1400–1800
- Francesca Kaes – Monument Trust Curator of British Drawings
- Grant Lewis – Project Curator: Michelangelo
- Jennifer Ramkalawon – Assistant Keeper, Western Modern and Contemporary Graphic Art (1880 to the present)
- Isabel Seligman – Monument Trust Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawing
- Sarah Vowles – Assistant Keeper, Smirnov Family Curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings before 1880
- Charlotte Wytema – IMAF Project Curator: Netherlandish Drawings
The work of the department is supported by a team of Collections Managers and administrative staff.
Research
The staff of the Department of Prints and Drawings conduct extensive research as part of their work in cataloguing, preparing exhibitions and making new acquisitions. Read about our current research project on Netherlandish drawings.
