Students examine artworks in the Doris Ulmann Galleries.

The Doris Ulmann Galleries showcases rotating exhibits of contemporary visual artists and is the home to the Berea College Art Collection.

The Berea College Art Collection was established in 1935 as a teaching collection with the purpose of providing Berea College students with the best examples of art and artifacts from around the world.  Currently, the Collection is made up of more than 15,000 works of art and artifacts of cultural significance from around the world and is known for its high quality. The core of the collection includes paintings, prints, and photographs by European and American masters and contemporary artists; contemporary ceramics; and Asian arts.  Among the most significant works in the collection are Renaissance paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Old Master prints including works by Rembrandt and Albrecht Dürer, Japanese woodblock prints, over 3000 photographs by Doris Ulmann, and paintings by Gilbert Stuart, Arthur Wesley Dow, Thomas Moran, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The early works on paper were supplemented by recent gifts of contemporary American prints by Jasper Johns, Jacob Lawrence, and Sam Gilliam among others.

The Berea College Art Collection is made accessible to the campus, surrounding communities, and visiting scholars with the goal of providing rich opportunities to experience the visual arts.  We accomplish this goal by caring for the artwork entrusted to us by generations of donors, exhibiting a curated selection of works from the permanent collection each year, and making the artwork available for research and study through class visits and individual research appointments.