Art Museum: A Growing Collection

New exhibitions at the UW Art Museum showcase foundational gifts.

 

By Michelle Sunset, Director of Curatorial Affairs
 
The University of Wyoming Art Museum is home to an impressive permanent collection of over 11,000 artworks representing diverse cultures, mediums, genres and time periods. While many members of our campus and broader communities regularly engage with the museum’s exhibitions and programs, the story of how this expansive collection came to be is less widely known. 

Collecting efforts began in the late 1960s, when UW’s visual arts department began acquiring original works of art to support studio art instruction. These early acquisitions were intended as hands-on teaching tools, giving students the invaluable opportunity to study original artworks firsthand. In 1972, the UW Art Museum was formally established to steward the growing collection and to organize original exhibitions. Since then, the museum has developed into an encyclopedic collection of remarkable scope and depth built primarily through the generosity of donors and supporters. Endowment funds and direct gifts of artwork have played a central role in shaping the museum’s holdings and ensuring their long-term care.

The museum will dedicate 2026 and 2027 to a series of exhibitions that highlight distinct areas of the permanent collection, offering visitors fresh perspectives on its breadth and significance. Among the featured presentations will be a display of masks from cultures around the world that highlight the ceremonial, spiritual and artistic traditions they represent. Prints and photographs by Andy Warhol explore work by the pop art icon in collaboration with Colorado State University. The E.G. Meyer Collection of Western American Art will celebrate regional histories and artistic interpretations of the American West.

Other exhibitions will revisit some of the museum’s foundational gifts, including Works Progress Administration (WPA) artworks — among the earliest major contributions to the collection. An exhibition of contemporary works collected over the past 25 years will showcase the collections built through exhibitions with living artists. In addition, Paul Binnie’s woodblock prints will remain on view in the Gerald and Joyce Lang Print Study Room, the newly opened gallery and classroom space that connects visitors with the traditions of printmaking.

As the museum continues to grow, new acquisitions are selected through a thoughtful and rigorous process. The Collections Advisory Committee — composed of two members of the National Advisory Board, two faculty representatives and one member at large — works closely with the museum’s director of curatorial affairs to evaluate potential additions. Through careful research and discussion, the committee considers how proposed works align with the museum’s mission, complement existing holdings and contribute to future exhibitions. In every acquisition, the museum also considers how artworks can support interdisciplinary teaching across campus. 

Visit the museum throughout 2026–27 to experience the breadth of the UW Art Museum’s collections from the earliest additions to the most recent. There are also over 2,000 works from the collection available on the museum’s public collections database if you would like to see more: uwyoartmuseum.catalogaccess.com.