Allen Memorial Art Museum

The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at the students, faculty and staff of Oberlin College, in addition to the surrounding community. Notable strengths include seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, nineteenth and early twentieth-century European and contemporary American art, as well as Asian, European and American works on paper. The collection is housed in an Italian Renaissance-style building designed by Cass Gilbert and named after its founder, Dr. Dudley Peter Allen (B.A., 1875), a graduate and trustee of Oberlin College and the first husband of Elisabeth Severance Prentiss, whose bequest as Mrs. F. F. Prentiss included parts of her art collection started during her first marriage.

In 1977, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown designed an addition that represents one of the earliest examples of postmodern architecture in the United States.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} In 2011, the historic museum underwent a two-year retrofit, after which it was awarded with USGBC LEED Gold certification.{{Cite web|url=http://new.oberlin.edu/home/news-media/detail.dot?id=3498088|title=News & Events|date=29 July 2016}}

File:Allen Memorial Art Museum - Oberlin College - interior 2.jpg, Greek and Roman art wings]]

The Allen Memorial Art Museum has a collection of more than 15,000 objects – including paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, prints, drawings and photographs – that provide a comprehensive overview of the history of art from a variety of cultures. The collection has a focus on European and American paintings and sculpture from the 15th century to today, and also has holdings of Asian paintings, scrolls, sculpture and decorative art, including a large group of Ukiyo-e prints.

Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, African and Pre-Columbian art is represented. The museum also houses the Eva Hesse archives, which includes the artist’s notebooks, diaries, photographs and letters, and it oversees, along with the Art Department, Frank Lloyd Wright's Weltzheimer/Johnson House.

Notable donations were made by Jewish industrialist, Eugene Leopold Garbaty, who fled Germany in the 1930.Reed, Victoria. "The Eugene Garbaty collection of European art." Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, vol. 10, no. 3, summer 2014, pp. 321

In 2024, the museum restituted a watercolor by Egon Schiele entitled Schwarzes Mädchen to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, who was murdered in the Holocaust.{{Cite web |last=Christies |title=EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) Schwarzes Mädchen |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6482970 |website=christies.com |quote=Provenance Franz Friedrich "Fritz" Grünbaum, Vienna (by 1925, from whom spoliated after March 1938). Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern (1956). Galerie St. Etienne, New York (acquired from the above, September 1956). Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio (acquired from the above, 1958). Restituted to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, 2024.}} The artwork was one of several seized by the Manhattan D.A. in a criminal investigation by the trafficking unit.{{Cite web |date=2024-07-26 |title=D.A. Bragg: Eleventh Piece Of Nazi-Looted Art Returned To Relatives Of Fritz Grünbaum |url=https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-eleventh-piece-of-nazi-looted-art-returned-to-relatives-of-fritz-grunbaum/ |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=Manhattan District Attorney's Office |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Steven Litt |first=cleveland com |date=2023-09-15 |title=New York DA orders seizure of Egon Schiele drawing owned by Oberlin College, allegedly stolen by Nazis during Holocaust |url=https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/09/new-york-da-orders-seizure-of-egon-schiele-drawing-owned-by-oberlin-college-allegedly-stolen-by-nazis-during-holocaust.html |access-date=2024-11-08 |website=cleveland |language=en}}

Purchases made through the Mrs. F.F. Prentiss Fund include a Henry Moore sculpture and other works:

File:Brabant Farmyard by Piet Mondrian.jpg|Brabant Farmyard by Piet Mondrian

File:1stLordWodehouse.jpg|Portrait of John, 1st Lord Wodehouse, by Pompeo Batoni

At the beginning of every semester, students camp out in front of the north gate of the museum to get first pick of original etchings, lithographs and paintings by artists including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. For five dollars per semester, students can hang these works on their dorm room walls.

The program was started in the 1940s by Ellen H. Johnson, a professor of art at Oberlin, in order to "develop the aesthetic sensibilities of students and encourage ordered thinking and discrimination in other areas of their lives."Angell, Sue (September 26, 2005). "Art Rental Still Going Strong After 60 Years". Oberlin Online: News and Features. (web link: [http://oberlin.edu/news-info/05sep/art.html Oberlin.edu] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060103194349/http://oberlin.edu/news-info/05sep/art.html |date=2006-01-03 }})

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{{Commons category|Allen Memorial Art Museum}}

• {{official|https://amam.oberlin.edu/}}
• [http://cdm15963.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15963coll41 Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum]

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Category:Art museums and galleries in Ohio

Category:Cass Gilbert buildings

Category:Museums in Lorain County, Ohio

Category:University museums in Ohio

Category:Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums

Category:Art museums and galleries established in 1917

Category:Museums of American art

Category:1917 establishments in Ohio

Category:Renaissance Revival architecture in Ohio

Category:Postmodern architecture in Ohio

Category:Oberlin College buildings and structures