Recent news reports have suggested that the British Council's art collection is under threat as it struggles to manage a £197 million debt and potential insolvency. Half of the 9000-item collection is protected by agreements with donors that restrict work being sold, but the remainder are potentially under threat of disposal, unless the government steps in to support the Council. As Jenny Waldman from the Art Fund notes if the British Council were to sell off art work it would set a precedent that could see cash-strapped local authorities and even national museums consider raising funds from sales.
The British Council has been collecting works of art, craft and design since 1938. It has no permanent gallery and uses the collection to promote British culture overseas through loans and touring exhibitions. A photograph was first added in 1969 with a Euan Duff print of a Richard Hamilton work The Critic Laughs (1968), but the first photograph collected in its own right was Sir George Pollock's Cibachrome print Spectrum No. 6 in 1970. Thereafter photography was actively collected to support exhibitions and acquired through donation, as examples, in 1972 twenty-five Bill Brandt prints were acquired and in 1975 forty-five David Hurn prints, amongst many other examples. The photography collection numbers some 630 photographs.
From a photography perspective the collection includes a significant number of photographs from well-known British photographers and artists using photography including Martin Parr, Chris Killip, Richard Hamilton, Richard Arnatt, Victor Burgin, Homer Sykes, Patrick Ward, Chris Steel Perkins, Sharon Kivland, Hamish Fulton, Paul Hill, David Nash, Paul Trevor, Fay Godwin, Cecil Beaton, Bob Chaplin, George Rodger, Bert Hardy, Thurston Hopkins, Tony Ray-Jones, Ian Berry, Bryn Campbell, Raymond Moore, Laurence Cutting, Calum Colvin, Richard Long, Helen Sear, Boyd Webb, Matt Collishaw, Michael Landy, Clare Strand, Angus Bolton, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rut Blees Luxenburg, Mark Power, Lala Meredith-Vula, Sarah Lucas, Tacita Dean, Jane Simpson, Marcus Haydock, Ann Doherty, Adam Chodzko, Peter Liversidge, Dominic Pote, Shirley Baker, Gabriella Sancisi, Martin Creed, Chloe Dewe Mathews, Tracey Emin, Hew Locke and many others.
The graph above (based on the searchable online collection database) shows acquisitons of photographs from 1969 to the last recorded in 2018. This includes a small number of photographs of artwork, and, of course, the work of artists using photography as part of their wider practice. The photography collection grew during the tenure of Brett Rogers OBE when she was working at the British Council between 1982 and 2005, during which she was Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions and was largely responsible for establishing the photography collection. She curated a programme of international touring exhibitions on British photography.
See: https://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/collection/search-9
News reports: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/feb/06/the-british-council-will-trash-a-precious-national-asset-if-it-sells-its-art-collection and https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/02/03/british-council-art-collection-at-risk-debt-to-government and https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/british-council-considers-selling-half-collection-debt-1234731681/
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