The Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest and one of the most prestigious university art museums in America and the third oldest such museum in the world. The Gallery’s encyclopedic holdings, which number more than 185,000 objects, range from ancient times to the present day and represent civilizations from around the globe. The collection is housed in two contiguous buildings, one of which is a newly renovated landmark of early modernist architecture designed by Louis Kahn, the other a distinguished neo-Gothic structure designed by Egerton Swartwout.
Since its founding in 1832, the Yale University Art Gallery has amassed a remarkably comprehensive collection that is widely known for several areas of particular strength. These include the Greek and Italian vases in the Stoddard Collection, a large group of objects excavated by Yale from the ancient Roman city of Dura-Europos, the Jarves Collection of early Italian painting, works of Asian, Near Eastern, and Precolumbian art from the Olsen Collection, and the newly installed Charles B. Benenson collection of African art. Also of note are the outstanding collections of American painting, silver, and decorative art from the colonial period to contemporary works by Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, and Agnes Martin. The Gallery’s collection of modern European painting includes such favorites as Edouard Manet’s Young Woman Reclining in Spanish Costume, Vincent van Gogh’s The Night Café, and Pablo Picasso’s Mother and Child (First Steps).
