Wayne State students and employees don’t have to travel far to encounter and enjoy a treasure trove of artwork. An eclectic collection of more than 6,000 pieces enhances campus buildings and lawns.

Sculptures, paintings, prints, ethnographic objects, statues and art forms that simply defy description, have been catalogued, maintained and placed throughout the campus courtesy of generous donors and the Wayne State University Art Collection (UAC). 

Sandra Schemske, art collection coordinator, said the university is fortunate to have an excellent collection of works representing approximately 2,000 individual artists and 300 unknown artists. A majority of the collection consists of works by Michigan and regional artists from the mid-to-late 20th century; however the influence of international artists also is represented. A sampling of artists globally includes German Expressionists Kathe Kollwitz, Erich Heckel, Max Klinger, Otto Mueller, Max Pechstein and Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzu, who created the “Nymph and Faun” sculpture located in the McGregor Reflecting Pools and Sculpture Garden. 

Included among notable artists in the U.S. is Jacob Lawrence, who lived and created his art in the center of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, and was the first African American artist to receive sustained mainstream recognition in the U.S. 

  

Closer to home, the Cass Corridor is a significant focus of the collection. As part of a major gift from James Pearson Duffy, the UAC received nearly 40 years of artwork mailed from Cass Corridor artist Gordon Newton to his patron, Duffy. The UAC documented, catalogued and archivally preserved approximately 1,400 pieces of Newton’s “mail-art.”

“This significant archive of images offers a unique opportunity for research into the creative mind of one of Detroit’s most inventive artists,” said Schemske. This body of work will be featured in an online exhibition on the collection’s website this spring.

Though the collection doesn’t have a dedicated space for permanent exhibitions, campus buildings and lawns provide suitable homes for the treasures. The David Adamany Undergraduate Library has several works in the Student Academic Success Center, including the Presidential Portrait exhibition and Irvin D. Reid Honors College on the second floor, and the permanent Cass Corridor Culture display on the third floor. Artworks also are on display in the Faculty/Administration Building, Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Scott Hall, and Mazurek Medical Education Commons. You’ll also see more than 20 public sculptures just by taking a walk around campus. 

Sharing the collection is an important goal, and under special circumstances, the UAC loans artwork to off-site exhibitions. Currently, Robert Sestok’s “Rock and Roll” sculpture is on exhibit at Cobo Center in Detroit. This summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland has requested the works of Wayne State University alumnus Mary Ann Aitken for an exhibition.

For further information about the University Art Collection, visit artcollection.wayne.edu.

Pictured: Romare Bearden, The Baptism, 1976, silkscreen on paper, gift of Michael Tolan, 2008, photo by Daniel Sperry, courtesy of Wayne State University Art Collection