Marian University’s Permanent Art Collection Mission
The mission of Marian University’s permanent art collection is to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret artworks to provide unique opportunities for education and enrichment in the university and surrounding community and to promote interdisciplinary teaching and research.
Acquisition Philosophy
The Marian University permanent art collection strengthens its ability to serve its audiences by making acquisitions through gifts or bequests. Many factors contribute to a work's suitability for acquisition, including artistic quality, spiritual or historical significance, intellectual appeal, attributes that foster understanding of a particular culture or artistic movement, and, above all, a credible provenance.
The permanent art collection featured throughout our campus galleries promotes the core of the university’s identity. This identity is shaped by the Catholic faith and the Franciscan sponsorship values of dignity of the individual, peace and justice, reconciliation, and responsible stewardship. These values inform our collecting philosophy to build, not only a great Catholic university but also, an edifying art collection that attends to each of these values.
Dignity of the individual means we embrace the imaginary vision of all artists who see reality, design possibility, and inspire a new reality out of possibility. Responsible stewardship, among other attitudes and actions, implies that the university values creation and our created world. Peace and justice inform the collections that represent the diversity of our world community. Finally, reconciliation illuminates those works that lead viewers to contemplate their spiritual centers. With a permanent art collection based on these four Franciscan values, the university intends for visitors to explore how the Franciscan sponsorship values operate in their lives and in our learning community.
For more information about the Marian University Permanent Art Collection, contact Jamie Higgs, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History and Curator of the Marian University Permanent Art Collection at jhiggs@marian.edu or (317) 955-6432.
Introduction: Franciscan Values Art Walks, Art Talks
Since I am a professor, my year begins in the fall. I never purchase a calendar that opens with the month of January. Auld lang syne does not cross my mind until the end of August so I use one of those paper academic calendars that begin in the fall. Each fall, when new groups of students eagerly sit in my classroom, that is the time of year I realize the days are passing. With each fall semester, I grow nostalgic, remembering the students who are out in the world but enthusiastically embracing the new faces and voices that I have the privilege of teaching. For that reason, I have opted to commence our seasonal art walks in the fall. The time of year that for me says good-bye to the past, welcomes the present, and embraces the unknown future.
Welcome to Art Walks | Art Talks and thank you for spending some time with me and my musings about the Marian University permanent art collection. The permanent collection has been my special project, a labor of love, to care for, research, and make available to the Marian community for over twenty-five years. Since the Marian community embraces St. Francis’ teachings and St. Francis is the patron saint of ecology, I have opted to relate each walk to a season and one of the Franciscan sponsorship values that is at the heart of Marian University’s Catholic identity.
These sponsorship values include, in the seasonal order I have adopted: Peace and Justice (fall); Dignity of the Individual (winter); Reconciliation (spring); and Responsible Stewardship (summer). Using these values gives us a lens through which to understand the art. However, understanding these works is not limited to only seeing with the lens I hold up. With this guide, I encourage you to consider my interpretations but since Marian also is an institution devoted to the study of the liberal arts, those subjects that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a citizen to know to take an active part in civic life, I urge you to think critically and creatively about Marian’s permanent art collection. In thinking critically, I invite you to reach your own historically and spiritually informed conclusions alongside those I have thoughtfully researched, curated, and reflected upon.
- Peace & Justice | Fall Walk
- Dignity of the Individual | Winter Walk (coming soon)
- Reconciliation | Spring Walk (coming soon)
- Responsible Stewardship | Summer Walk (coming soon)
Marian University On-Line Gallery Collections
- Father William Stang African Art Collection
- Abstract Art Across Campus
- Landscape Art Across Campus
- Mexican Art Across Campus
- Religious Art Across Campus