At Home with the Elliotts: A ‘Fine Art Print Collection’ Before Berea College
September 29, 2025 @ 8:00 am - March 13, 2026 @ 5:00 pm
“I have the collecting gene. There’s just no doubt about it.” – Gerald Elliott
Shelly and Gerry Elliott have been collecting prints since they married in 1960, carefully selecting one print through a mail order catalog tied the New York-based Association of American Artists. As Gerry says, “It just went on from there.”
Since then, the Elliotts have amassed a collection of hundreds of these works on paper representing an impressive array of artistic styles, time periods, methods, processes, and techniques that they have lovingly hung en masse in their home, leaving hardly one inch of wall space bare. Shelly and Gerry have chosen to live a life surrounded by art, by what they find to be beautiful, curious, and interesting.
To date, the Elliotts have generously gifted over five hundred artworks from their personal collection to the Berea College Art Collection. At Home with the Elliotts: A ‘Fine Art Print Collection’ Before Berea College is inspired by the Elliotts’ lifelong adoration and pursuit of the print and their drive to intentionally create a space for themselves in this world that has enabled them to be entirely surrounded by visual art and human creativity. This exhibition recreates, in part, the Elliotts’ Washington, DC, home in such a way to encourage visitors to consider the different ways one might seek out a life in the arts.
Click here to view more information about the artworks included in the show!
At Home with the Elliotts will be on view in the Masterpiece Gallery on the first floor of the Rogers-Traylor Art Building from Monday, September 29, 2025 through Friday, March 13, 2026. This exhibition is generously supported by Shelly and Gerry Elliott and the William A. and Leola Piper Boyce Art Exhibition Endowment Fund.
Gerry Elliott – Fine Art Print Collector, directed by Justin Skeens, 2023, featuring Kelsey Frady Malone, PhD; Dante Stewart (Berea College Class of 2023); and Florence Wright (Berea College Class of 2025)