![]() Yale University Art Gallery's Louis Kahn Building (left) is connected to the Old Yale Art Gallery (right) | |
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Established | 1832 |
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Location | 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
Coordinates | 41°18′30″N72°55′52″W / 41.308459°N 72.930985°W |
Type | Art museum |
Director | Stephanie Wiles since 2018 |
Public transit access | ![]() ![]() |
Website | artgallery.yale.edu |
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. [1] It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the gallery emphasizes early Italian Renaissance painting, African sculpture, and modern art.
The gallery was founded in 1832 when patriot artist John Trumbull donated over 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and designed the original picture gallery. [2] [3] This building on the university's Old Campus was razed in 1901. [4]
Street Hall, designed by Peter Bonnett Wight, was opened as the Yale School of the Fine Arts in 1866, and included exhibition galleries on the second floor. The exterior was in a neo-Gothic style, with an appearance influenced by 13th-century Venetian palaces. These spaces are the oldest ones still in use as part of the Yale University Art Gallery. [2]
A new building, designed by Yale University architect Egerton Swartwout, was completed in 1928. This building features a deliberately eclectic mix of Romanesque, Gothic and Classical features, with cornices, a pitched slate roof, and large windows set within stone arches, and was connected to Street Hall by an enclosed bridge over High Street. It was ultimately known as the "Old Yale Art Gallery" to contrast it with the modernist expansion added a couple of decades later. [2]
The gallery's modernist main building, built from 1947 to 1953, was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, who taught architecture at Yale. [5] ("Kahn played a major role in Yale's own artistic development. And Yale in turn would give Kahn the commission that transformed his career as an architect.") [6] Although the Art Gallery with steel structure and reinforced concrete may seem simple to the eye, it was designed in a rigorous process. [7] Kahn and Anne Tyng, the first woman licensed as an architect in the state of Pennsylvania [8] and an employee of Kahn's independent practice, "devised a slab that was to be poured into metal forms in the shape of three-sided pyramids. When the forms were removed, they left a thick mass of concrete imprinted with tetrahedral openings." [6] The triangular ceiling of the gallery was designed by Tyng, who was fascinated by geometry and octet-truss construction. [9]
Kahn's addition "was...a box...of glass, steel, concrete, and tiny beige bricks", and had none of the features of the earlier galleries. One critic said that Kahn's building "could have scarcely have been distinguished from a Woolco discount store in a shopping center", and that the interior looked like an "underground parking garage". [10] : 50
In 1998, the gallery began a major renovation and expansion. A renovation of the 1953 building was completed in December 2006 by Polshek Partnership Architects, who returned many spaces to Kahn's original vision.
The project was completed on December 12, 2012, at a cost of $135 million, under then-director Jock Reynolds. [5] [11] The expanded space totals 69,975 sq ft (6,500.9 m2). [12]
In December 2011, the museum announced an $11 million gift from alumnus Stephen Susman, to create additional art exhibition galleries in a newly created fourth floor atop the Old Yale Art Gallery building. [13] [14] The expansion was completed in 2012, and included space for a rooftop sculpture garden. [2] [15]
![]() | This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations .(March 2024) |
On the second floor (of the gallery) was a very valuable collection of paintings by John Trumbull, mainly of historical events. Among them were his well-known paintings of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery before Quebec, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Declaration of Independence, etc. Trumbull gave the paintings to Yale in consideration of an annuity of $1,000 and subject to the condition that he and his wife should be forever buried beneath the pictures.
— George E. Verrill, The Ancestry, Life and Work of Addison E. Verrill of Yale University [16]
The encyclopedic collections of the gallery number more than 200,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. The permanent collection includes: [17]
In 2005, the museum announced that it had acquired 1,465 gelatin silver prints by the influential American landscape photographer Robert Adams. In 2009, the museum mounted an exhibition of its extensive collection of Picasso paintings and drawings, in collaboration with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. [3] For the first time, portions of the Yale University Library's Gertrude Stein writing archives were displayed next to relevant drawings from Picasso. [3]
In April 2022, the museum surrendered 13 South Asian artifacts, valued at more than $1 million, as part of art looting investigation. [18]
As an affiliate of Yale University, the gallery offers education programs for university students, New Haven schools, and the general public. Two such programs are: the Gallery Guide program, founded in 1998, which trains undergraduate students to lead tours at the museum; and the Wurtele Gallery Teachers, established in 2006, which include Yale graduate students from all school and backgrounds, who give curricula-informed tours to K-12 audiences. [19]
The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program, but charges no admission. [11]
![]() | This section needs expansionwith: Description of governance and relationship to Yale University. You can help by adding to it. (February 2021) |
From 1946 to 1948, George Heard Hamilton was associate director at Yale University Art Gallery.
In July 2018, Stephanie Wiles became the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery. [20]
José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic genre Cubism, his works are among the movement's most distinctive.
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related artistic movements in music, literature, and architecture. In Cubist works of art, the subjects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of depicting objects from a single perspective, the artist depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term cubism is broadly associated with a variety of artworks produced in Paris or near Paris (Puteaux) during the 1910s and throughout the 1920s.
Louis Isadore Kahn was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel.
John Trumbull was an American artist of the early independence period, notable for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Revolution".
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West. The building complex takes up 45,000 square metres (480,000 sq ft) of physical space, making it one of the largest art museums in North America and the second-largest art museum in Toronto, after the Royal Ontario Museum. In addition to exhibition spaces, the museum also houses an artist-in-residence office and studio, dining facilities, event spaces, gift shop, library and archives, theatre and lecture hall, research centre, and a workshop.
The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as collections of early American furniture and decorative arts.
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts an art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, who also provided funds for a new building to house it.
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest and largest art museum in Kentucky. It was established in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky, on Third Street next to the University of Louisville Belknap campus. It receives around 180,000 visits annually.
The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in central New Haven, Connecticut, houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare books, and manuscripts reflects the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period onward.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the support of specific programs and all acquisition of artwork, as well as additional general support.
Anne Griswold Tyng was an architect and professor. She is best known for having collaborated for 29 years with Louis Kahn at his practice in Philadelphia. She served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania for 27 years, teaching classes in urban morphology. She was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and an academician of the National Academy of Design. She is the first woman licensed as an architect by the state of Pennsylvania.
The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, or sculpture.
The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. It is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park. Its collection, stewarded by 11 curatorial departments, includes works such as Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and Grant Wood's American Gothic. Its permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works of art is augmented by more than 30 special exhibitions mounted yearly that illuminate aspects of the collection and present curatorial and scientific research.
The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works of art ranging from antiquity to the contemporary period. The Princeton University Art Museum dedicates itself to supporting and enhancing the university's goals of teaching, research, and service in fields of art and culture, as well as to serving regional communities and visitors from around the world. Its collections concentrate on the Mediterranean region, Western Europe, Asia, the United States, and Latin America.
The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777 is the title of an oil painting by the American artist John Trumbull depicting the death of the American General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton on Friday, January 3, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. The painting was Trumbull’s first depiction of an American victory. It is one of a series of historical paintings on the war, which also includes the Declaration of Independence and The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776.
General George Washington Resigning His Commission is a large-scale oil painting by American artist John Trumbull of General George Washington resigning his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army on December 23, 1783 to the Congress of the Confederation, then meeting in the Maryland State House at Annapolis, Maryland. The painting was commissioned in 1817, started in 1822, finished in 1824, and is now on view in the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C., along with three other large-scale paintings by Trumbull about the American Revolutionary War.
The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776 is the title of an oil painting by the American artist John Trumbull depicting the capture of the Hessian soldiers at the Battle of Trenton on the morning of Thursday, December 26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. The focus is on General George Washington aiding the mortally wounded Hessian Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall. Nearly 900 Hessians were captured at the battle. It is one of Trumbull's series of historical paintings on the war, which also includes the Declaration of Independence and The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777. The painting is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.
General George Washington at Trenton is a large full-length portrait in oil painted in 1792 by the American artist John Trumbull of General George Washington at Trenton, New Jersey, on the night of January 2, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. This is the night after the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, and before the decisive victory at the Battle of Princeton the next day. The artist considered this portrait "the best certainly of those which I painted." The portrait is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, an 1806 gift of the Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. It was commissioned by the city of Charleston, South Carolina, but was rejected by the city, resulting in Trumbull painting another version.
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