About the Museum
Palmer Museum of Art
The Palmer Museum of Art on the Penn State University Park campus is a free-admission arts resource for the University and surrounding communities in central Pennsylvania. The museum offers an ever-changing array of exhibitions and displays of its permanent collection. With eleven galleries, a print-study room, 150-seat auditorium, and outdoor sculpture garden, the Palmer Museum is a unique cultural resource for residents of and visitors to the region.
Museum History
The Palmer Museum's bold façade, the outward result of a
major expansion and renovation in 1993, surrounds the museum's original 1972
building, a three-story structure that once housed only three galleries to
display traveling exhibitions and art from the museum's permanent collection.
The Museum of Art, as it was known, opened to the public on Sunday, October 7, 1972. More than 1,500 students, faculty, and members of Penn State's administration were given tours of the new building and the museum's first exhibitions. Along with a Penn State faculty show and the exhibition Masterworks by Pennsylvania Painters in Pennsylvania Collections , curated by the late Harold Dickson, were selections from the newly formed permanent collection. One of the original pieces in the museum's collection was a mobile by Alexander Calder titled Spring Blossoms that is still on view in the galleries today. The mobile had been a gift to Penn State from the Class of 1965. To assist in expanding the permanent collection, the mobile and a portion of the moneys from the graduating class gift each year were given to the museum through the 1970s.
Affirmative Action, 1987, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 88 1/4 inches, by Jerry
Kearns (American, b. 1943). Gift of Joseph D. and Janet M. Shein. Collection of the Palmer Museum of Art.
Slowly, the museum built a permanent collection with funding from graduating classes, the University, private donors, and the Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art, a membership group founded in 1974 to help with the museum's fund-raising and outreach efforts. The Friends alone, have donated more than fifty works of art to the collection, including a fifteenth-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, a marble portrait bust of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by American sculptor Henry Dexter, and an oil-on-panel portrait by Gilbert Stuart, to name just a few.
More than half of the 5,500 works of art in the permanent collection have been donated or purchased with funds contributed to the museum. Significant donors include Dr. and Mrs. Harold L. Tonkin, who bequeathed a large portion of their collection of Asian ceramics and decorative arts along with numerous European paintings with Asian themes; Dr. William E. Harkins, who has donated more than 150 Japanese prints to the museum since the mid-1970s; Mary Jane Harris and her late husband, Morton, who have given several Italian Baroque paintings with a number more promised; Joseph and Janet Shein, who have donated more than two dozen contemporary paintings and sculptures since 2000; and, of course, Barbara Palmer and her late husband, James, who have not only made great contributions to the museum's collection of American art but also gave $2 million in 1986 to initiate the campaign to expand the museum.
Completed in 1993, the expansion added ten new galleries to better showcase the museum's outstanding and still growing permanent collection and special exhibitions, including impressive titles from Rembrandt to Rodin . Many of the galleries and renovated spaces were named for donors to the expansion who have become some of the museum's greatest supporters. These include Katherine W. Christoffers, Donald Hamer, the Palmer and Lipcon families, Richard and Sally Kalin, the Tonkins, David and Gerry Pincus, and Alvin and Jean Snowiss.
Now, more than ten years later, the museum has undergone another transformation. Just in time for the museum's thirtieth anniversary in fall 2002, renovations to the original 1972 building were completed, adding a new space for the study of works on paper and a fully reconstructed, 3,100-square-foot gallery--the largest of the museum's exhibition areas. James and Barbara Palmer, again, made the lead gift for these most recent renovations, which were also supported by many of our oldest and dearest friends, including John and Ruth Robinson, Philip and Judith Sieg, Katherine W. Christoffers, Marie Bednar and Donald W. Hamer, Gerald B. M. Stein, B. J. and Carol Cutler, and Blake and Linda Gall. Collectively, the major donors to the renovation decided to name the new gallery for William Hull, the museum's founding director.
The William Hull gallery may seem familiar to those who remember the museum's earlier days. The original slate floors and unique grid ceiling are in tact--with a new coat of polish and paint, of course. By reclaiming such a large and significant gallery on the second floor of the original building, the museum has gained more exhibition space for its collection. The addition of a new print study room on the same floor also enables the museum to share its expansive collection of works on paper with interested students, faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public.
New Mexico Landscape, c. 1921-1923, oil on board, 14 x 18 1/2
inches, by Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943). Gift of James and Barbara
Palmer. Collection of the Palmer Museum of Art.
The Permanent Collection
The Palmer Museum's permanent collection is displayed in seven galleries and
is nearly comprehensive in terms of world cultures and time periods. The first-floor
galleries feature a collection of ancient coins and gold weights, a fourth-century
mosaic from northern Africa, stunning examples of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Old Master painting, and hand-carved Japanese jades, among many other European,
Asian, South American, and African works of art from antiquity through the
twentieth century. The museum's second-floor galleries feature American paintings,
sculptures, and works on paper from the eighteenth century to the present.
Exceptional examples include a late eighteenth-century portrait by the New
England artist John Brewster, Jr.; a large and highly detailed nineteenth-century
still life by the Bucks County painter Severin Roesen; exquisite nineteenth-century
landscapes by William Sonntag, John Kensett, and William Trost Richards; and
an impressive range of twentieth-century paintings and sculptures by artists,
including Marsden Hartley, Richard Diebenkorn, Red Grooms, and Marisol. The
collection continues to grow in these areas, primarily through the generosity
of the museum's donors and supporters. More information...
Special Exhibitions
In addition to displays of its permanent collection, the Palmer
Museum also presents an exciting schedule of exhibitions and events each
year. Special, temporary exhibitions offer works of art by world-renowned
artists from all periods and places and from both public and private collections.
More information...
Tours and Education Programs
In service to both University and area communities, museum programs
and special events, including gallery talks, lectures by national and international
artists and scholars, music, dance, and theater performances, film series,
and workshops, are regularly offered--admission free. Free guided tours for
school and adult groups can also be scheduled. More information...
Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art
Support for museum programs, exhibitions, and acquisitions is provided
through membership dues and funds raised by the Friends of the Palmer Museum
of Art, the membership, fund-raising, and volunteer organization for the
museum. For more information on how to support the Friends of the Palmer
Museum or to become a member, contact Ali Bradley at abradley@psu.edu or 814-863-9182. More information...
