The Arts in the University
A Place in the Sun
Our rambling, robust system of college and university museums is nearly unique. Yes, there are university museums in the United Kingdom, but they have fewer than ten, while we in America have at least two hundred. No other country has a network of museums dedicated to students and faculty. The first in America—the Yale University Art Gallery—opened in 1832 via John Trumbull’s gift of a hundred of his Revolutionary War paintings in return for an annuity and graves for him and his wife in the gallery crypt.
There the Trumbulls still repose. Above them is an intellectual and aesthetic hive. Not every college and university has an art museum, but many do. All focus on students and academics rather than art appreciators and delectation, though many are to be found there and much is to be had. Still, the milieu’s scholarly and esoteric.
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