Where to see Hennell’s work
Remarkably, there are well over 300 works by Thomas Hennell in public collections, covering the whole gamut of his oeuvre, from war art collected by the museums of the three armed services, to agricultural drawings at Wye College (now held at Imperial College, London) and work relating to his madness at the Wellcome Collection and the Bethlem Royal Hospital Museum. Even allowing for Hennell’s prolific work-rate, this represents a very high proportion of the artist’s total output, reflecting the fact that much of his best work was produced in harness to the state – both as an Official War Artist and, before that, on various projects relating to the war effort.
I’ve provided links below to those collections where it is possible to view Hennell’s work online, followed by a further list of those institutions with Hennell holdings, but which don’t have fully searchable online collections.
Tate Gallery – http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1271
National Archives/Government Art Collection – http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.gac.culture.gov.uk/search/Object.asp?object_key=24856
Imperial War Museum – http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=thomas+hennell&submit=&items_per_page=10
Victoria & Albert Museum – http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/recording-britain-collection/
National Maritime Museum – http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/150477.html
Wellcome Collection – http://encore.wellcome.ac.uk/iii/encore/search?formids=target&lang=eng&suite=def&reservedids=lang%2Csuite&submitmode=&submitname=&target=hennell&submit=Search
RAF Museum, Hendon – http://navigator.rafmuseum.org/results.do?view=detail&db=person&mode=1&id=20821
Victoria Art Gallery, Bath – http://art.bathnes.gov.uk/ow23/collections/rechcroisee.xsp?f=Ensemble&v=&f=Artistsearch_field&v=Hennell%2C+Thomas+Barclay&e=
Also:
Ulster Museum, Belfast
Russell-Cotes Museum and Art Gallery, Bournemouth
Cartwright Memorial Art Gallery, Bradford
Brighton Art Gallery
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
Royal Museum, Canterbury
National Museum of Wales
Cheltenham Art Gallery
Tower Art Gallery, Eastbourne
Glasgow Art Gallery
Harrogate Art Gallery
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
Leeds City Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Harris Museum, Preston
Salford Art Gallery
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery
Southampton Art Gallery
Stoke Art Gallery
Wakefield Art Gallery
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Imperial College, London University (the former collection of Wye College)
(houses a large collection of Hennell’s agricultural drawings)
Manchester Art Gallery
Bethlem
Bolton
Tyne & Wear