Dudley Peter Allen, by August Reinhold Franzén

The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

located in

Oberlin, Ohio Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students. The town is the birthplace of th ...

, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art.

Overview

The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at the students, faculty and staff of Oberlin College, in addition to the surrounding community. Notable strengths include seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, nineteenth and early twentieth-century European and contemporary American art, as well as Asian, European and American works on paper. The collection is housed in an Italian Renaissance-style building designed by

Cass Gilbert Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas and ...

and named after its founder, Dr. Dudley Peter Allen (B.A., 1875), a graduate and trustee of Oberlin College and the first husband of Elisabeth Severance Prentiss, whose bequest as Mrs. F. F. Prentiss included parts of her art collection started during her first marriage. In 1977,

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with h ...

and

Denise Scott Brown Denise Scott Brown (née Lakofski; born October 3, 1931) is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, ...

designed an addition that represents one of the earliest examples of postmodern architecture in the United States. In 2011, the historic museum underwent a two-year retrofit, after which it was awarded with

USGBC The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...

LEED Gold certification.

Collections

Allen Memorial Art Museum - Oberlin College - interior 2

The Allen Memorial Art Museum has a collection of more than 15,000 objects – including paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings and photographs – that provide a comprehensive overview of the history of art from a variety of cultures. The collection has a focus on European and American paintings and sculpture from the 15th century to today, and also has holdings of Asian paintings, scrolls, sculpture and decorative art, including a large group of

Ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...

prints.

Ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

Egyptian,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Roman, African and

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

art is represented. The museum also houses the Eva Hesse archives, which includes the artist’s notebooks, diaries, photographs and letters, and it oversees, along with the Art Department,

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

Weltzheimer/Johnson House The Weltzheimer/Johnson House is a Usonian style house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oberlin, Ohio. It was constructed in 1948 and 1949. Now owned by Oberlin College, it is operated as part of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. The house was orig ...

Prentiss Fund

Purchases made through the Mrs. F.F. Prentiss Fund include a Henry Moore sculpture and other works: File:Brabant Farmyard by Piet Mondrian.jpg, ''Brabant Farmyard'' by Piet Mondrian File:1stLordWodehouse.jpg, ''Portrait of John, 1st Lord Wodehouse'', by

Pompeo Batoni Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors tra ...

Art rental

At the beginning of every semester, students camp out in front of the north gate of the museum to get first pick of original etchings, lithographs and paintings by artists including Pierre-Auguste Renoir,

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...

, and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

. For five dollars per semester, students can hang these works on their dorm room walls. The program was started in the 1940s by Ellen H. Johnson, a professor of art at Oberlin, in order to "develop the aesthetic sensibilities of students and encourage ordered thinking and discrimination in other areas of their lives."Angell, Sue (September 26, 2005). "Art Rental Still Going Strong After 60 Years". ''Oberlin Online: News and Features''. (web link
Oberlin.edu
)

References

External links

*
Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum
{{authority control Art museums and galleries in Ohio Cass Gilbert buildings Museums in Lorain County, Ohio University museums in Ohio Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Art museums established in 1917 Museums of American art 1917 establishments in Ohio Renaissance Revival architecture in Ohio Postmodern architecture in Ohio