With a primary focus on American Art of the Twentieth Century and a preponderance of works on paper, the Museum collection includes a wide range of styles of modernist practice. Paintings by Arthur Bowen Davies, Edwin Dickinson, and Friedel Dzubas, and sculptures by William Zorach, Alexander Calder, and George Rickey, in addition to the noteworthy collection of public sculptures on the campus, demonstrate major trends in modernism. Works on paper by luminaries Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Philip Pearlstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol demonstrate mid-century developments. The Museum’s collection of photography and video works lends significant strength to holdings in contemporary art.
Augmenting the painting and sculpture of the twentieth century to the present day is the College’s impressive collection of public sculpture, which includes major works by Tony Smith, Dan Graham, and Michael Singer, among others. Since 1999 the Museum has been collecting contemporary photography and video works in a unique project initiated by an alumna to engage student participation. Each year the students recommend works for acquisition in these mediums. The Museum’s collection of photography, in addition to nineteenth-century examples, includes recent works by Olafur Eliasson, Sally Mann, Gregory Crewdson, and Chuck Close, among other contemporary artists.
A unique aspect of the Museum’s holdings is a collection of decorative art objects by the St. Petersburg firm of Fabergé. The gift to the College from a Vermont family descended from the Russian Tsars [the Romanofs], the collection offers a fascinating and highly unusual glimpse into the material culture of this dramatic period of history.