York Castle Museum

Collections

York Art Gallery's collections have all been awarded 'designated' status for their national and international importance.

Our collections include the works of art on display in the gallery and many more works that are behind the scenes in storage. This section gives an overview of everything, both on display and off.

Decorative Arts

Our Decorative Arts collection of more than 3,000 pieces contains a wide variety of ceramics, glassware and other items.  View Collection

Paintings

Our collection of 1,000 paintings is exceptional for its range in covering the history of Western European painting.  View Collection

Studio Pottery

Our collection of 20th century studio pottery is one of the biggest and most important in Britain with more than 4,000 pieces.   View Collection

Works on Paper

There are over 17,000 drawings, watercolours and prints in the collection. About half of these are landscape views and more that 4,000 feature the city of York by local artists such as Henry Cave, John Harper and John Browne.  View Collection

Star Works

This section highlights works which are rare, beautiful, interesting, or tell a story. In many cases they are not always on display and our website gives us the opportunity to show them to you.

A National Treasure

This square porcelain dish from around 1930, by Japanese potter Tomimoto Kenkichi (1886 1963), is an exciting new acquisition for York Museums Trust.  View Collection

Burton Gallery stars 2011

A selection of favourite paintings from the newly-refurbished Burton Gallery in 2011  View Collection

Day Dreams

This painting inspired our visitors to verse!  View Collection

Dutch Courage

Dutch painters of the 17th century favoured simple subjects that reflected their everyday lives. They explored themes like daily toil and political events, painting them in fine detail.  View Collection

Flower Pictures II

Hua De Tu An, Flower Pictures II, 2007 created by Felicity Aylieff  View Collection

Potty about pots

Yorkshire librarian Bill Ismay built up one of the world's biggest and best collections of 20th century ceramics in his two-bedroomed terraced house in Wakefield.  View Collection

Staff stars

We asked some of our staff to choose a painting from the many held in our collection - including those on display and those currently in storage.  View Collection

William Etty - York's controversial artist

William Etty is York's most famous artist and was the first major British painter to specialise in the nude before the 20th century.  View Collection