Allen Memorial Art Museum facts for kids
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| Established | 1917 |
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| Location | Oberlin College 87 North Main Street Oberlin, Ohio 44074 United States |
| Type | Art museum |
The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is a special art museum in Oberlin, Ohio. It is part of Oberlin College. The museum opened in 1917. It has a huge collection of more than 15,000 artworks.
About the Museum
The AMAM is mostly a teaching museum. It helps students, teachers, and staff at Oberlin College learn about art. It also welcomes people from the nearby community. The museum is known for its art from the 1600s in Europe, and art from the 1800s and 1900s from Europe and America. It also has many Asian, European, and American artworks on paper.
The museum building looks like an Italian Renaissance palace. It was designed by Cass Gilbert. The museum is named after its founder, Dr. Dudley Peter Allen. He was a graduate and leader at Oberlin College.
In 1977, architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown added a new part to the museum. This addition is one of the first examples of a style called postmodern architecture in the United States. In 2011, the museum building was updated. It earned a special award for being energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.
What Art Can You See?
The Allen Memorial Art Museum has over 15,000 art pieces. These include paintings, sculptures, decorative items, prints, drawings, and photographs. They show the history of art from many different cultures.
The museum has a lot of European and American paintings and sculptures from the 1400s to today. It also has Asian paintings, scrolls, sculptures, and decorative art. This includes a large group of Ukiyo-e prints from Japan.
You can also see ancient art from ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire. There is also African art and Pre-Columbian art from before Columbus arrived in the Americas.
The museum also keeps the special papers of artist Eva Hesse. These include her notebooks, diaries, photos, and letters. The museum also helps look after Frank Lloyd Wright's Weltzheimer/Johnson House, which is a famous house designed by the architect.
Some important artworks were given to the museum by Eugene Leopold Garbaty. He was a Jewish businessman who left Germany in the 1930s.
In 2024, the museum returned a watercolor painting by Egon Schiele called Schwarzes Mädchen. This painting was given back to the family of Fritz Grünbaum. His art was taken during the Holocaust.
Special Art Purchases
The museum has bought many important artworks using money from the Mrs. F.F. Prentiss Fund. These include a sculpture by Henry Moore and other famous pieces:
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Brabant Farmyard by Piet Mondrian
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Portrait of John, 1st Lord Wodehouse, by Pompeo Batoni
Art You Can Borrow
At the start of each school semester, students at Oberlin College line up outside the museum. They want to be the first to pick original artworks to borrow! For just five dollars a semester, students can hang these artworks in their dorm rooms.
The program started in the 1940s. It was created by Ellen H. Johnson, an art professor at Oberlin. She wanted to help students learn to appreciate art and think carefully about things in their lives. Students can borrow works by famous artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Arte Memorial Allen para niños
