A discerning buyer he started collecting in the early 1960s and carefully assembled over 200 prints and drawings. Under the terms of his will that collection has been left to the British Museum. The critic was a regular at the museum’s prints and drawings exhibitions and study room.
The focus of the collection is post-1960 American and British art although Picasso, Matisse and Miró are also represented. The museum says the Walker collection is the largest and most important bequest of modern work received by the Prints and Drawings department in the past 50 years.
A year after his death the British Museum pays tribute to Alexander Walker and his bequest with an exhibition of 150 works from the collection showing in the Prints and Drawings Gallery from June 15 to January 9 2005.
Film critic with an eye for prints and drawings
ALEXANDER Walker, who died last year at the age of 73, was the film critic of London’s Evening Standard for more than 40 years and among the well-known names in the film world. Not so well known is that he was a noted collector of modern art.
