Lowe Art Museum's comprehensive collection comprises more than 19,250 objects, which collectively represent more than 5,000 years of human creativity on every inhabited continent. The collection is divided into 14 thematic rooms with each room dedicated to a theme or artistic current in the collection. In addition to its 14 rooms, the museum includes Palley Pavilion, which is dedicated to the museum's glass collection, and an outdoor garden, which includes contemporary art sculptures.[4]
History
Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami opened on February 22, 1950. The museum was originally established by a gift from philanthropists Joe[5] and Emily Lowe.[6] At the time of its opening, the museum was the first art museum in South Florida.
In 1951, Miami philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe underwrote construction of a stand-alone facility on the University of Miami campus to absorb the gallery's rapidly growing collections. The new Lowe Art Gallery was dedicated on February 4, 1952. Four years later, in 1956, Alfred I. Barton donated his extensive collection of Native American art to Lowe, which was accommodated in a 1,300 square-foot purpose-built addition.
In 1961, Lowe Art Gallery was selected as a repository for 43 works from the Samuel H. Kress Collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art, which was housed in a new wing built specifically for it.
In 1985, Lowe was recognized by the State of Florida as a major cultural institution, the first museum in Miami-Dade County to receive this designation.
In 1991, as a result of Lowe's continued art acquisitions (primarily through gift acceptances), the museum underwent a major expansion. Miami architect Charles Harrison Pawley was selected for this project, which added 13,000 additional square feet of temporary and permanent exhibition gallery space to the museum, bringing its total footprint to over 36,000 square feet. This expansion also addressed Lowe's need for new HVAC, security, and fire protection systems.
The museum's most recent expansion, the Myrna and Sheldon Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Glass and Studio Arts, opened in 2008 and added another 4,500 square feet of exhibition space. The museum's collections also include pieces ranging from classical archeology to contemporary art, with important pieces of Renaissance, Baroque, Asian, and Native American art.
Greek and Roman antiquities
Sylvia and Ray Marchman, Jr. Gallery
This gallery includes pottery, sculpture, metalwork, and glasswork from ancient Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, dating from the first millennium BCE through the 4th century CE. The antiquities on view are complemented by Washington Allston's mural-sized, neoclassical painting Jason Returning to Demand His Father's Kingdom (1807-1808).
Renaissance and Baroque arts
Samuel H. Kress, Palley Gallery and Sheila Natasha Simrod Friedman Gallery
Here you will find Western European Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque paintings, sculptures, and decorative art objects including work from the Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance and Baroque art. This wing was built specifically to house the Kress Collection after Lowe was selected as a repository for 41 works in 1961.
Arts of Africa
The Potamkin Family Gallery
This gallery offers works from all regions of the African continent with an emphasis on the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Works include architectural elements, ceremonial and ritual objects, costumes, textiles, and sculptures dating from ca. 500 BCE to the present. In addition, there are ceramic, stone, metal, and paper objects from Egypt, the Near East, and Western Asia.
Arts of Asia
Sol and Sheila Taplin Gallery
This gallery includes ceramics, metalwork, sculpture, costumes, textiles, and architectural elements dating from the Neolithic period through the present from China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia.
Indigenous art of the Americas
Alfred I. Barton Wing
This gallery, which is dimly lit to preserve its contents, hosts pottery, basketry, sculpture, costumes, and textiles of Native North, Central, and South America. Works on view span from the period of 2500 BCE to contemporary works by living Native artists.
Contemporary and modern art
Ben Tobin Galleries
The long gallery is dedicated to contemporary artwork that is globally influenced and culturally diverse. Contemporary art, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century, combines materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue to challenge boundaries. Diverse and eclectic, this work is a part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, politics, community, and nationality.
Contemporary glass and ceramics
Myrna and Sheldon Palley Pavillion and Pat and Larry Stewart Hall, Beaux Arts Bay and Matus Bay
The Myrna and Sheldon Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Glass and Studio Arts and houses over 100 objects from Lowe's glass collection as well as ceramics. Palley Pavilion opened on May 1, 2008 thanks to the vision of long-time University supporters and alumni, Sheldon and Myrna Palley, whose collection is a promised gift.
