The Arizona State University Art Museum is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although ...

operated by

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

, located on its main campus in

Tempe, Arizona Tempe ( ; ''Oidbaḍ'' in O'odham language, O'odham) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2020 population of 180,587. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in t ...

. The Art Museum has some 12,000 objects in its permanent collection and describes its primary focuses as

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

, including new media and "innovative methods of presentation";

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

, with an emphasis on American

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

; historic and contemporary prints; art from

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

and the Southwestern United States, with an emphasis on Latino artists, and art of the Americas, with one historic American pieces and

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and contemporary Latin American works.Facts
." Arizona State University Art Museum. The art collection was established in 1950. The current director of the Art Museum is Miki Garcia. The director of the museum reports to the dean of the ASU

Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University is one of the largest comprehensive design and arts colleges in the nation. It comprises six schools: ASU FIDM; the School of Art; the School of Arts, Media and Enginee ...

, and community members are represented through the museum's Creative Impact Board. The museum is located in two buildings. The main exhibition space is the Nelson Fine Arts Center, designed by architect

Antoine Predock Antoine Samuel Predock ( ; June 24, 1936 – March 2, 2024) was an American architect based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was the principal of Antoine Predock Architect PC, the studio he founded in 1967. Predock first gained national attention ...

. A second museum facility, the Ceramics Research Center lies to the north, on 7th Street and Mill Ave in the Brickyard Engineering Building.History
." Arizona State University Art Museum. Admission to the museum is free. Parking at the main museum is free if you use the reserved spaces directly in front of the museum. Parking at the Brickyard location is metered.

History and facilities

In 1950, prominent Phoenix lawyer Oliver B. James gave a gift of 16 oil paintings by American artists to ASU.American Collection
." Arizona State University Art Museum Over five years, James donated over 149 works by various American, Mexican, and European artists to the museum. The collection was originally included among the stacks at the university's first library building, the Matthews Library. The Neoclassical building was constructed in 1930 and was remodelled in 1951. The library was expanded in 1955,Matthews Library
" Arizona State University Libraries, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, University Archives. but in 1966, with the library space outgrowing the university's collection, Matthews Library was closed and of books were moved to the Charles Trumbull Hayden Library, which had been completed the previous year and remains the university's main library today. The art collection remained at the Matthews Library building, renamed Matthews Center. Contributions from donors expanded the museum's collections, particularly of prints and American crafts.

Rudy Turk Rudy Henry Turk (19272007), was an American visual artist, art historian, curator, and museum director. He served as the director emeritus and former curator of the Arizona State University Art Museum in Tempe, Arizona. Turk was elected as a hono ...

was the founding director and curator of the Arizona State University Art Museum, where he worked from 1967 until 1992. In 1977, the museum received a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

matching grant to purchase of contemporary American ceramics. By 1978, the museum occupied the entire second floor of the Matthews Center, with some of exhibition space. In April 1989, the ASU Art Museum moved into the newly completed Nelson Fine Arts Center, designed by architect

, where the museum remains today. The Nelson Center is and includes five galleries as well as administrative offices and storage and processing areas. Soon after the Art Museum's move to its new facility, the size of its staff doubled, and a curator of education, a print collection manager and several administrative and security workers were added to the staff. In 1992, Marilyn A. Zeitlin became the museum's director. Zeitlin was praised for expanding the museum's collections eightfold during her tenure. Under Zeitlin, the museum was chosen to curate video artist

Bill Viola William John Viola Jr. ( , ; January 25, 1951 – July 12, 2024) was an American video artist whose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human ...

's show at the United States Pavilion at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

in 1995. However, the museum experienced controversy when ''

The Arizona Republic ''The Arizona Republic'' is an American daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. History Early years The newspap ...

'' revealed that a university audit in early 2007 showed that the museum had received $450,000 over seven years from prominent donor Stephane Janssen, one of the museum's largest donors, and arranged with him to buy art from Janssen's company. The arrangement was found to not be illegal but was discontinued. Zeitlin stepped down at the end of the year in 2007 after 15 years as director. There was "unanimous agreement that the ASU Art Museum has flourished" during Zeitlin's tenure. In March 2002, the Ceramics Research Center opened in the Tempe Center just to the north of the Nelson Center. The center was designed by Gabor Lorant Architects, Inc. and includes with two galleries, open storage stacks and a research library. Additional facilities at the library's two buildings include a lecture room, a print study room, and a "

nymphaeum A ''nymphaeum'' (Latin : ''nymphaea'') or ''nymphaion'' (), in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habit ...

" (

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary a ...

Collections

Works of contemporary art held by the museum include works by

Hung Liu Hung Liu (劉虹) (17 February 1948 – 7 August 2021) was a Chinese Americans, Chinese-born American contemporary artist. She was predominantly a painter, but also worked with mixed-media and site-specific installation and was also one of the ...

Karel Appel Christiaan Karel Appel (; 25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-gard ...

Derek Boshier Derek Boshier (19 June 1937 – 5 September 2024) was an English artist, among the first proponents of British pop art. Greene, Alison de Lima (2000). Texas: 150 Works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. New ...

Deborah Butterfield Deborah Kay Butterfield (born May 7, 1949) is an American sculptor. Along with her artist-husband John Buck, she divides her time between a farm in Bozeman, Montana, and studio space in Hawaii. She is known for her sculptures of horses made fr ...

Sue Coe Sue Coe (born 21 February 1951) is an English artist and illustrator working primarily in drawing, printmaking, and in the form of illustrated books and comics. Her work is in the tradition of social protest art and is highly political. Coe's w ...

, Dan Collins, Vernon Fisher, Jon Haddock,

William Kentridge William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. He is especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s, constructed by filming ...

, Lynn M. Randolph, Frances Whitehead, and William T. Wiley. The focus of ASU Art Museum's

Latin American art Latin American art is the combined artistic expression of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, as well as Latin Americans living in other regions. The art has roots in the many different Indigenous peoples of the Americas, i ...

holdings is on

Mexican art Various types of visual arts developed in the geographical area now known as Mexico. The development of these arts roughly follows the history of Mexico, divided into the prehispanic Mesoamerican era, the New Spain, colonial period, with the per ...

from the 20th century,

Mexican ceramics Ceramics in Mexico date back thousands of years before the Pre-Columbian period, when ceramic arts and pottery crafts developed with the first advanced civilizations and cultures of Mesoamerica. With one exception, pre-Hispanic wares were not gl ...

and

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

; and contemporary

Cuban art Cuban art is an exceptionally diverse cultural blend of North American, South American, European, and African elements, reflecting the diverse demographic makeup of the island. Cuban artists embraced European modernism, and the early part of the ...

.Latin American Collection
." Arizona State University Art Museum. The core of the Latin American collection was donated to the museum in 1950 and includes works by

David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

, and

Rufino Tamayo Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec peoples, Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th cen ...

. Later acquisitions of pieces by Mexican artists include works by

Carlos Mérida Carlos Mérida (December 2, 1891 – December 21, 1985) was a Guatemalan artist and naturalized Mexican who was one of the first to fuse European modern painting to Latin American themes, especially those related to Guatemala and Mexico. He was ...

, Leonel Góngora, Rafael and

Pedro Coronel Pedro Coronel (March 25, 1922 – May 23, 1985) was a Mexican sculptor and painter. He was part of the Generación de la Ruptura, which brought innovation into Mexican art in the mid 20th century. Coronel's training was with artists of the Mexic ...

;

José Guadalupe Posada José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political printmaker who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...

, Leopoldo Mendez, and other members of the

Taller de Gráfica Popular The ''Taller de Gráfica Popular'' (Spanish: "People's Graphic Workshop") is an artists' print collective founded in Mexico in 1937 by artists Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O'Higgins, and Luis Arenal. The collective was primarily concerned with using ...

; and the contemporary artists Alejandro Colunga, Lucio Muniain, and Nestor Quiñones. Works by Cuban artists in the museum collection include works by Yamilys Brito, Pedro Alvarez, Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández), Osvaldo Yero, Abel Barroso, René Francisco, Jacqueline Brito, Fernando Rodríguez, José A. Toirac, and

Kcho KCHO (sometimes spelled "K'cho"), born Alexis Leiva Machado on the Isla de la Juventud, Isle of Pines (1970), is a contemporary Cuban artist. He first attracted international attention by winning the grand prize at South Korea's Gwangju Biennale ...

. The museum has also acquired pieces by

Brazilian art The creation of art in the geographic area now known as Brazil begins with the earliest records of its human habitation. The original inhabitants of the land, pre-Cabraline Indigenous or Natives peoples, produced various forms of art; specific ...

ists

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha Tiago Carneiro da Cunha (born 1973 in São Paulo, Brazil), is a Brazilian artist. He is the son of José Mariano Carneiro da Cunha and Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, anthropologists. During his formative years, he took life-drawing classes in the s ...

, Efrain Almeida, and Oscar Oiwa. American works comprises one of the ASU Art Museum's smallest collections. ASU's holdings of

American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization, there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...

began with the museum's original contributions from Oliver B. James. Earlier works in the collection include early American

limner A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. A mention of medieval limners' work appears in the book ''Methods and Materials of Painting'' by Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865). United Ki ...

painters, while the most recent works are from 20th century

modernists Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this moveme ...

, including

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Amer ...

Yasuo Kuniyoshi was a Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker. Early life Kuniyoshi was born on September 1, 1889, in Okayama, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 at 17, choosing not to attend military school in Japan. Kuniyoshi ...

and Stuart Davis. Among the holdings in the American collection are various 19th-century Romantic

landscape paintings A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Diction ...

from the 19th century, Ash Can School works, and portraits, include

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter born in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-k ...

's ''Mrs Stephen Peabody'' (1809). The museum holds Georgia O'Keeffe's ''Horse's Skull on Blue'' (1930), a depiction of a sun-bleached

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

that is the first in a series of skull paintings created by O'Keeffe after bones found in the desert around her ranch. The painting's blue background are a reference to the skies of

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

and the painting is in the

memento mori (Latin for "remember (that you have) to die")

tradition of

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s. The museum also holds Edward Hopper's ''House by a Road'' (1942); and Albert Pinkham Ryder's ''The Canal'' (1915). The print collections at the ASU Art Museum include some 5,000 prints held in the Jules Heller Print Study Room. A focus of the museum's print collection is dealing with social and political issues; works include pieces by

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraving, engraver, pictorial social satire, satirist, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from Realism (visual arts), realistic p ...

Honoré Daumier Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808 – February 10 or 11, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the July Revolution, Revolution of 1830 ...

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

, Leopoldo Mendéz, and Francesc Torres. The collection includes some 50 prints and paper works by contemporary Cuban artists and 123

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

and intaglios by Sue Coe. The print collection also includes examples of Japanese

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

. The museum's

collection includes some 3,500 pieces, of which half are displayed at any one time at the Ceramics Research Center. Works include pieces by Peter Vandenberge, Marilyn Levine, Richard Shaw, Lanier Meaders,

Clayton Bailey Clayton George Bailey (March 9, 1939 – June 6, 2020), was an American artist who worked primarily in the mediums of ceramic and metal sculpture. Early life and education Clayton George Bailey was born on March 9, 1939, in Antigo, Wisconsin. I ...

, Tanya Batura, Tip Toland,

Henry Varnum Poor Henry Varnum Poor (December 8, 1812 – January 4, 1905) was an American financial analyst and founder of H.V. and H.W. Poor Co, which later evolved into the financial research and analysis bellwether, Standard & Poor's. Biography Born in East ...

, Viola Frey,

Robert Arneson Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at University of California, Davis for nearly three decades. Early life and education Robert Carston Arnes ...

Jack Earl Jack Earl (born August 2, 1934, in Uniopolis, Ohio) is an American ceramic artist and former teacher, known for drawing inspiration from his home state of Ohio to create rural pieces “with meticulous craftsmanship and astute details… to where ...

, Michael Lucero,

Stephen De Staebler Stephen De Staebler (March 24, 1933 – May 13, 2011) was an American sculptor, printmaker, and educator, he was best recognized for his work in clay and bronze. Totemic and fragmented in form, De Staebler's figurative sculptures call forth the m ...

, Darrin Hallowell, Robert David Brady, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Beth Cavener Stichter,

Peter Voulkos Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic c ...

, Robert Turner, Kenneth Ferguson, Don Reitz, David Shaner, Maria Poveka Martinez and

Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer * Sailboat designs by W. D. Schock Corp ** Santana 20 ** Santan ...

Fannie Nampeyo Fannie Nampeyo (1900–1987) (also known as Fannie Lesou Polacca and Fannie Nampeyo Polacca) was a modern and contemporary fine arts potter, who carried on the traditions of her famous mother, Nampeyo of Hano, the grand matriarch of modern Hopi ...

, Rick Dillingham, Wayne Higby, Eddie Dominguez,

Warren MacKenzie Warren MacKenzie (February 16, 1924 – December 31, 2018) was an American craft Pottery, potter. He grew up in Wilmette, Illinois the second oldest of five children. His high school days were spent at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illino ...

Karen Karnes Karen Karnes (November 17, 1925 – July 12, 2016) was an American ceramist, best known for her salt glazed, earth-toned stoneware ceramics. Early life Karnes was born on November 17, 1925 in New York City, where she attended art schools for ...

, Ted Randall, Val Cushing, William Daley, John Mason,

Jun Kaneko is a Japanese-born American ceramic artist known for creating large scale ceramic sculpture. Based out of a studio warehouse in Omaha, Nebraska, Kaneko primarily works in clay to explore the effects of repeated abstract surface motifs by using ...

Toshiko Takaezu Toshiko Takaezu (June 17, 1922 – March 9, 2011) was an American ceramic artist, painter, sculptor, and educator whose oeuvre spanned a wide range of mediums, including ceramics, weavings, bronzes, and paintings. She was noted for her pioneerin ...

, Richard DeVore,

Edwin Scheier Edwin Scheier (November 11, 1910 – April 20, 2008) was an American artist, best known for his ceramics (art), ceramic works with his wife, Mary Scheier. Early life Edwin Scheier was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, to a Jewish Ger ...

, John Gill, Les Lawrence, Chris Staley, Anne Hirondelle, Peter Shire, Michael Corney, Richard T. Notkin,

Adrian Saxe Adrian Saxe is an American ceramic artist who was born in Glendale, California in 1943. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Biography Saxe studied at the Chouinard Art Institute (Los Angeles, California) from 1965 to 1969 and earned ...

Ralph Bacerra Ralph Bacerra (1938, Garden Grove, California - June 10, 2008) was a ceramic artist and career educator. He lived and worked in Los Angeles, California. From 1959 to 1961, Bacerra was a student at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he ...

, Michael Gross,

Akio Takamori Akio Takamori (1950 – 2017) was a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and educator. Takamori often incorporated human forms into his creations. Early life and education Takamori was born in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan on October 11, 1950. His ch ...

, David Regan, Jason Walker, Jerry Rothman,

Beatrice Wood Beatrice Wood (March 3, 1893 – March 12, 1998) was an American artist and studio potter involved in the Dada movement in the United States; she founded and edited '' The Blind Man'' and '' Rongwrong'' magazines in New York City with French ...

Betty Woodman Elizabeth Woodman (née Abrahams; May 14, 1930 – January 2, 2018) was an American ceramic artist. Early life and education Betty Woodman was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, to Minnie and Henry Abrahams. Her parents were progressive socialists ...

Bernard Leach Bernard Howell Leach (5 January 1887 – 6 May 1979) was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery". Biography Early years (Japan) Leach was born in Hong Kong. His mother Eleanor (n� ...

Michael Cardew Michael Ambrose Cardew (1901–1983), was an English studio pottery, studio potter who worked in West Africa for twenty years. Early life Cardew was born in Wimbledon, London, the fourth child of Arthur Cardew, a civil servant, and Alexandra ...

Lucie Rie Dame Lucie Rie, (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) () was an Austrian-born, independent, British studio potter. She is known for her extensive technical knowledge, her meticulously detailed experimentation with glazes and with firing and her unu ...

Hans Coper Hans Coper (8 April 1920 – 16 June 1981) was an influential German-born British studio potter. His work is often coupled with that of Lucie Rie due to their close association, even though their best known work differs dramatically, wit ...

, Kanjiro Kawai, and

Shoji Hamada A is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of translucent (or transparent) sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque '' fusuma'' is used (/close ...

.Ceramics Collection: Innovation and Change: Images from our ceramics collection
." Arizona State University Art Museum.

References

External links

* {{authority control Art museums and galleries established in 1950 Arizona State University Museums in Tempe, Arizona Art museums and galleries in Arizona University museums in Arizona 1950 establishments in Arizona Ceramics museums in the United States Arizona State Sun Devils