Journals on collections and artists

This material is held atPaul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

  • Reference
    • GB 3010 ONM/1
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1945-2006
  • Language of Material
    • English
  • Physical Description
    • 51 files

Scope and Content

Oliver Millar's forty-nine journals and two indexes span a sixty-year period. Their main purpose was to record his visits to public and private collections in the UK and abroad, as well as auction houses. They chart changes in ownership, theories of attribution, and curatorial trends.

This section of the catalogue provides detailed descriptions of the individual journals, allowing readers to search for a particular collection, location or date of visit (particularly useful for visits to auction houses). It also gives the page numbers for each relevant entry so that readers can identify how detailed Millar's notes are for each particular visit.

Two indexes (ONM/1) refer to entries in the core set of journals by collection name, and by artist name. They form a useful access point for readers wishing to look at his entries on a particular house or artist.

Twenty-four journals concern visits to collections in the UK (ONM/2).

Twenty-two journals focus on visits abroad (ONM/3).

An additional seven journals record Millar's visits to view works by Anthony Van Dyck (ONM/4).

Five journals record references to artists in published material (ONM/5).

Finally there is a pocket notebook used by Millar in the 1950s-1960s (ONM/6).

Select pages from these journals have been digitised. To view the images, see the catalogue records for ONM/1/2/1, ONM/1/2/1/1, ONM/1/2/2, ONM/1/2/4, ONM/1/2/5, ONM/1/2/8, ONM/1/2/9, ONM/1/2/13, ONM/1/2/14, ONM/1/2/20, ONM/1/2/23, ONM/1/2/24, ONM/1/3/16, ONM/1/3/19 and ONM/1/4/4.

Access Information

Open for research. Readers must fill in an 'Reader Agreement Form' which outlines the reading room rules and conditions concerning privacy and Data Protection