Archives & Library

Library Collections

The library collections cover British painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, decorative arts, architecture and garden history from the medieval period to the present day. The collections on British artists and architects, the British and Irish country house and the eighteenth-century Grand Tour are particularly strong.

Charles S. Rhyne

Approximately 50 books. This material has been fully catalogued on the Library and Photographic Archive catalogue.

The collection consists of publications relating to the life and work of John Constable, 1776–1837, collected by Charles S. Rhyne throughout a lifetime of research on the artist. Some of the books contain marginalia.

The collection was donated to the Paul Mellon Centre in 2015.

The Centre also holds Rhyne’s archive.

Selection of pamphlets

Pamphlets on John Constable from the Charles S. Rhyne donation, 2015

Charles S. Rhyne (1932–2013) was an art historian and expert on the English landscape artist, John Constable. He was professor emeritus of art history at Reed College, Oregon, for over thirty years. He was a visiting fellow at the Yale Center for British Art and a visiting scholar at the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Research Institute, and J. Paul Getty Museum.