Patrick Caulfield's tapestry Pause on the Landing is the final piece of artwork to be installed on the St Pancras site following its completion in 1998. It can be found in the Foyer of the Conference Centre. From its conception, the building was intended not only to provide its users with efficient service, and preserve the Library's unrivalled collections, but also to provide a setting for works of art both old and new.
No fewer than 112 locations have been reserved for works of art in the public and reader areas of the building. The list below gives a selection of the artworks housed throughout the Library. Comprising a variety of mediums, they reflect the diversity of the works on display and the British Library's rich cultural history. Further information can be obtained at the welcome desk.
Piazza
' Newton ' after William Blake (1995)
- A bronze statue by the late Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, inspired by Blake's famous image of Isaac Newton bending forward to plot with a pair of dividers the immensity of the universe
Planets (2002)
- Granites and other stones incised with the outline of human figures by Antony Gormley (creator of Field, Another Place and Angel of the North)
Entrance Hall: West Wall
William Shakespeare (1758)
- A cast of the full-length marble statue of Shakespeare executed by Louis Roubiliac (1702-62) for the actor David Garrick
Tapestry: 'If not, not' (1996)
- Woven by the Master Weavers of the Edinburgh Tapestry company, the tapestry is based on the painting of the same name by American artist R.B. Kitaj
- It is the first tapestry to be commissioned for the British Library and the largest to have been made in the United Kingdom, measuring seven metres square
- It reflects a host of literary references, chief among them T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Busts of the Founders (from left to right)
- Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631) by Louis Roubiliac (1702-62)
- Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) by Anne Seymour Damer (1749-1828)
- Thomas Grenville (1755-1846) by G.B. Comoli (1775-1830)
- Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) by Michael Rysbrack (1693-1770)
Entrance Hall: East Wall
Sitting on History (1995)
- With its ball and chain, this bronze sculpture by Bill Woodrow refers to the book as the captor of information from which we cannot escape
- It is only completed conceptually and formally when a person sits on it
Lower Ground Floor
Anne Frank, 1929-1945: "A Triumph of the Spirit"
- Installed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the birth of Anne Frank, 12 June 1999
First Floor: Head of Stairs
Bust of King George III (1812)
- A marble bust by Peter Turnerelli commemorating the removal of the King's Library to the St Pancras site
Third Floor: OIOC Landing
Henry Thomas Colebrook (1765-1837) (1820)
- A marble bust by Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841), commissioned by the East India Company to mark the gift of his collection
- The collections of the India Office Library and Records that came to the British Library incorporate a range of paintings, furniture and sculpture
'The Diamond Sutra', 1999
- Woodcut on polyester by Thomas Kilpper
Bird's-eye View of Venice
- Lodovico Ughi, engraved by Giuseppe Barsoni, Venice, 1729
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