Teaching and research are supported by the University’s extensive collections – the Yale University Art Gallery, the Center for British Art, the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and the Collection of Musical Instruments. All the collections are open to the public without charge.
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery, founded in 1832, today houses a collection that has grown to rank with those of the major public art museums in the United States. Its two connected buildings house ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art, Near and Far Eastern art, archaeological material from the University's excavations, Pre-Columbian and African art, works of European and American masters from virtually every period, and a rich collection of modern art. Across the street, the Yale Center for British Art, which opened in 1977, holds the largest collection of British art and illustrated books anywhere outside the United Kingdom.
Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, founded in 1866, contains one of the great scientific collections in North America. Among its holdings are the University's comprehensive mineralogical and ornithological collections, the second-largest repository of dinosaur artifacts in the United States, and the largest intact Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus) in the world. The Peabody is truly a working museum, where public exhibition, research, conservation, teaching, and learning intersect.
The Center for British Art
Institutions like the Art Gallery, the Center for British Art, and the Peabody Museum hold only a portion of the treasures in the University's collections. From paintings by Picasso, to pterodactyl remains, to a 1689 tenor viol in the Collection of Musical Instruments, Yale's possessions are meant to be accessible to the communities they enrich. Yet for all the depth of the University's holdings, Yale's greatest resource is undoubtedly its people. Just as students are inspired by the example and teaching of their professors, the faculty are continually rejuvenated by their students' explorations and fresh perspectives.
Collection of Musical Instruments
Exhibitions are also frequently mounted at the following venues on campus: Art + Architecture Gallery (School of Architecture), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Green Hall Gallery (School of Art), and Sterling Memorial Library, including the Arts of the Book Collection.
