The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the gallery emphasizes early Italian Renaissance painting, African sculpture, and modern art.
The gallery was founded in 1832 when patriot artist John Trumbull donated over 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and designed the original picture gallery. This building on the university’s Old Campus was razed in 1901.
Street Hall, designed by Peter Bonnett Wight, was opened as the Yale School of the Fine Arts in 1866, and included exhibition galleries on the second floor. The exterior was in a neo-Gothic style, with an appearance influenced by 13th-century Venetian palaces. These spaces are the oldest ones still in use as part of the Yale University Art Gallery.
Today it is one of the largest museums in the country, holding nearly 300,000 objects and welcoming visitors from around the world. The museum’s encyclopedic collection can engage every interest. Galleries showcase artworks from ancient times to the present, including vessels from Tang-dynasty China, early Italian paintings, textiles from Borneo, treasures of American art, masks from Western Africa, modern and contemporary art, ancient sculptures, masterworks by Degas, van Gogh, and Picasso, and more.
Spanning one and a half city blocks, the museum features more than 4,000 works on display, multiple classrooms, a rooftop terrace, a sculpture garden, and dramatic views of New Haven and the Yale campus. The gallery’s mission is to encourage an understanding of art and its role in society through direct engagement with original works of art. Programs include exhibition tours, lectures, and performances, all free and open to the public.
According to en.wikipedia.org; catalog.yale.edu
