Celebrating YCBA’s Gifts & Collections

NEW HAVEN — This summer, while Yale Center for British Art reinstalls its renowned collection of paintings and sculpture, it will present two exhibitions that showcase recent acquisitions, including extraordinary rare books, manuscripts, prints and drawings not often on public view, and splendid paintings and sculptures.

“Whistler: The Naval Review” and “Recent Gifts and Acquisitions,” on view until August 15, will celebrate the generosity of donors whose largess, following in the spirit of the center’s founding benefactor Paul Mellon, ensures the center’s status as a world-class collection for generations to come.

Whistler: The Naval Review

During Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, James McNeill Whistler attended a Naval Review off Spithead and recorded the occasion in a series of 12 etchings. A proof set of these delicate, breezy works is the focus of the exhibition.

The etchings, signed in pencil with Whistler’s signature butterfly, were part of the celebrated collection of Whistler’s prints assembled by Howard Mansfield. The Mansfield collection was sold to the Connecticut industrialist Harris Whittemore in 1919, and a descendant, Robert N. Whittemore, Yale Class of 1943, gave the “Naval Review Series” to the center in 2002.

In addition to his outstanding collection of Whistler’s prints, Harris Whittemore owned a number of important oil paintings by the artist, including “Nocturne in Blue and Silver,” acquired by the center in 1994. This superb example of Whistler’s fluidly painted and intensely atmospheric night views of the Thames will also be showcased.

So too will six Whistler watercolors given by Paul Mellon in 1993. These include a gray wash study of Rosa Corder, one of Whistler’s pupils and the subject of his “Arrangement in Black and Brown” in the Frick Collection, and a group of exquisitely painted views of shop fronts and street scenes from the 1880s and 1890s.

Recent Gifts And Acquisitions

YCBA is also displaying a selection of outstanding gifts and purchases of the last few years. These range from Claude de Jongh’s 1632 oil painting of Old London Bridge to works on paper by Christopher Cook, “Sidelong” and Rebecca Salter, “Bethany Squares 1–18.”

Included are works of sculpture, such as Gaspar van der Hagan’s marble relief, “Sacrifice to Hercules,” circa 1760, purchased with the Paul Mellon Fund and a gift from the Parnassus Foundation, courtesy of Jane and Raphael Bernstein; paintings, such as Joseph Wright of Derby’s “Lake Scene,” given by Michael D. Coe in memory of Sophie D. Coe; watercolors by John Robert Cozens and Francis Towne from the bequest of Iola Haverstick; prints by Claire Leighton and Lee Hankey given by Judith and Norman Zlotsky; and railway posters from Henry Hacker’s extensive gift of poster art.

A selection of rare books and manuscripts will include a rare Seventeenth Century panorama in its original leather viewing box that depicts theatrical and legendary figures, and an album of 80 albumen prints illustrating Britain’s Abyssinian Campaign of 1867, the earliest published photographic record of Ethiopia.

Admission to YCBA, which is at 1080 Chapel Street, is free. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; and Sunday, noon to 5 pm. For information, call 203-432-2800.