Indebted to donors who have given works of art to the University of Delaware over the past century, the Museums collections reflect a wide range of objects. Strengths include photography from its origins to the present, with emphasis on the early twentieth-century photography and the work of Gertrude Käsebier; works of illustrator Howard Pyle and his students; a growing collection of American and Western European prints; Russian Icons of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Inuit art. In moving forward, we seek to expand our holdings of American and European art, as well as of contemporary art.
Another particular strength of the Museums collections is African American art. A substantial gift by the Atlanta collector Paul R. Jones has served as a point of departure for a growing collection of African American art. The African American art collection includes the founding Paul R. Jones gift, a broad range of prints from the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, important photographs by P.H. Polk, and representative works by Delaware artist Edward L. Loper, Sr.