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4,798 artworks by 1,831 artists

Glasgow Life Museums is an Art UK Founder Partner

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The City of Glasgow owns one of the finest museum collections in Europe, of approximately 1.4 million objects. The Collection is wide ranging and encompasses art, human history, natural history and transport and technology. Glasgow Museums’ art collection is one of the most significant in the UK. It consists of some 60,000 objects covering a wide range of media. It provides a comprehensive overview of the history of European art and design and includes masterpieces by major artists such as Botticelli, Van Gogh and Whistler. Among collections of major international significance are Italian Renaissance paintings, Dutch Old Masters and French Impressionist works. The development of the art collections began with the bequest, in 1854, of 510 paintings by the Glasgow coachbuilder Archibald McLellan. Later in the nineteenth century many industrialists collected art and subsequently gave these collections to the City. Glasgow Museums has also collected proactively and continues to do so today. Works from Glasgow Museums are frequently lent to international exhibitions.