Yale University Art Gallery

The gallery was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and designed the original Picture Gallery.[2] This building, on the university's Old Campus, was razed in 1901.[3]

A Tuscan romanesque building, designed by Egerton Swartwout, was built in 1928.

The gallery's main building was built from 1947-1953, and was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, who taught architecture at Yale .[4] ("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.")[5] Although the Art Gallery with steel structure and reinforced concrete may seem simple to the eye, it was designed in a rigorous process.[6] Kahn and Anne Tyng, the first woman licensed as an architect in the state of Pennsylvania[7] 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."[5] The triangular ceiling of the gallery was designed by Tyng, who was fascinated by geometry and octet-truss construction.[8]

Kahn's addition to the art gallery was in stark contrast to the existing gallery which had been built 25 years earlier and was an Italian Romanesque palazzo designed by Egerton Swarwout, a Yale architect. The existing gallery had cornices, a pitched slate roof and large windows set within stone arches. Kahn's addition "was...a box...of glass, steel, concrete, and tiny beige bricks" and had none of the features of the existing gallery. 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."[9]

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.[4][10] The expanded space totals 69,975 sq ft (6,500.9 m²).

In December 2011 the museum announced an $11 million gift from alumnus Stephen Susman, to create new art exhibition galleries on the museum’s newly created fourth floor.[11][12][13]

In July 2018, Stephanie Wiles became the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery.[14]

On the second floor 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.[15]

• 
  A bagpiper by Quentin Massys
• 
  Miniature of George Washington by Robert Field (1800)
• 
  Hero and Leander by Peter Paul Rubens
• 
  The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775, John Trumbull, 1786
• 
  Parau Parau (Whispered Words), Paul Gauguin, 1892
• 
  The Night Café, Vincent van Gogh, 1888 [16]
• 
  Builders of Ships by George Bellows, 1916
• 
  Joseph Stella, Brooklyn Bridge, 1919–20
• 
  Kazimir Malevich, The Knifegrinder, 1912–13

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:[16]

• African Art: more than 1,000 objects in wood, metal, ivory, and ceramic
• American Decorative Arts: approximately 18,000 objects in silver, glass, wood, porcelain, and textile with an emphasis on the colonial and early federal periods
• American Paintings and Sculpture: more than 2,500 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 300 miniatures from before the mid-twentieth century including paintings by Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Frederic Remington, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, John Singer Sargent, Edwin Austin Abbey, Arthur Dove, Elizabeth Goodridge, and Edward Hopper, and sculptures by Hezekiah Augur, Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, William Henry Rinehart, Chauncey Ives, Alexander Archipenko, and Alexander Calder
• Ancient Art: more than 13,000 objects from the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Etruria, and Rome dating from the Neolithic to the early Byzantine
• Art of the Ancient Americas: Mayan and Olmec figurines, vessels and sculptures
• Asian Art
• Coins and Medals
• Early European Art
• Modern and Contemporary Art: including paintings and sculpture by Josef Albers, Edgar Degas, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Metzinger, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, and Roy Lichtenstein
• Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

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.[2] For the first time, portions of the Yale University Library's Gertrude Stein writing archives were displayed next to relevant drawings from Picasso.[2]

As an affiliate of Yale University, the gallery offers education programs for university students, New Haven schools, and the general public. One such program is the Gallery Guide program, founded in 1998, which trains undergraduate students to lead tours at the museum.[17]

The Yale Art Gallery charges no admission.[10]

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• Official website