Fine art collection

The collection includes the most comprehensive holdings in existence of works of the nineteenth-century Norwich School of Artists, the first exhibiting art society in Britain outside London. Three generations of some fifty artists are well represented, including leading members John Crome (1768-1821) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842), both of whom have international reputations in their own right. The Norwich School artists found subjects for their paintings primarily in Norwich and the countryside and coastline of Norfolk, but not exclusively so. In common with their contemporaries, they also toured the British Isles and the continent in search of subject matter.

The museum's collection of British and European School paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries aims to represent the development of British painting and to place the Norwich School in context. The rich cultural heritage of the area had enabled the Castle to acquire many fine works with a Norfolk provenance. The Castle is also responsible for the City's collection of over a hundred Civic Portraits, mainly of Mayors of Norwich, local MPs and other dignitaries. This is an important collection dating from the late sixteenth century to the twentieth century; artists include Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence, William Beechey and John Opie.

Demonstrating the cultural cross-fertilisation between Norwich and the Low Countries, Dutch and Flemish art is well represented within the collection with artists of the calibre of Pieter Breughel the Younger, Cornelis Engelsz, Willem Claesz. Heda, Meindert Hobbema and Aert van der Neer, as well as 93 etchings and one drawing by Rembrandt.

Post 1900, the museum holds a world-class collection of international twentieth-century art bequeathed to the East Anglia Art Fund in 1993 by Lady Jane Adeane and on permanent loan to the museum. The bequest includes works by artists such as Marie Laurencin, Francis Picabia, August Rodin and Andy Warhol. Paintings by René Magritte and Maurice Vlaminck from the original bequest were accepted in lieu of tax by HM Government and allocated to Norwich Castle.

In common with the pre-1900 collection, artists connected to the region are well-represented, with works by Sir Arnesby Brown, Sir Alfred Munnings and Edward Seago. Artists such as Michael Andrews, Mary Potter and Colin Self are also represented; as well as those who have taught at Norwich University of the Arts, notably works by Edward Middleditch and John Wonnacott. This has been augmented by the collection of the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society, which is deposited with Norwich Castle and includes works by artists such as Maggi Hambling and Eduardo Paolozzi.

The museum continues to acquire works across each area of the collection. Recent contemporary acquisitions include works by Beatrice Gibson, Ian Giles and Anthea Hamilton.