Yale University Art Gallery

Yale University Art Gallery Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest college art museum in America. FREE and open to the public. Free membership!
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The Yale University Art Gallery was founded in 1832 as an art museum for Yale and the community. Today it is one of the largest museums in the country, holding more than 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. Exhibitions present new scholarship and offer thematic perspectives on the collection. 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 entrance building, which was designed by renowned architect Louis Kahn and was completed in 1953, is a masterpiece of modern architecture. 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. Learn about membership benefits and join online at: https://artgallery.yale.edu/support/membership

⏳ Last chance — “John Coplans” is closing June 7!What does it mean to truly see yourself? British photographer John Copl...
05/31/2026

⏳ Last chance — “John Coplans” is closing June 7!

What does it mean to truly see yourself? British photographer John Coplans (1920–2003) didn't begin creating self-portraits until he was over sixty — and when he did, he made a radical choice: to never show his face.

Instead, Coplans turned his lens on his aging body — hands, feet, torso, skin — printed large and up close, often twisted into uncomfortable positions. Every wrinkle, every scar, every fold of loose skin is front and center. These are not images that apologize for getting older. They demand that you look. 👀

Coplan’s studies of the body express his belief that “farce and force combine to reveal the human comedy.”

Swipe through to experience these striking photographs for yourself — and then come see them in person before it's too late.

📍 “John Coplans” is on view on the Gallery's fourth floor through June 7.


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1. John Coplans, “Feet Frontal,” 1984. Gelatin silver print. Promised gift from Robinson A. Grover, B.A. 1958, M.S.L. 1975, and Nancy D. Grover. © The John Coplans Trust
2. John Coplans, “Back with Arms Above,” 1984. Gelatin silver print. Promised gift from Robinson A. Grover, B.A. 1958, M.S.L. 1975, and Nancy D. Grover. © The John Coplans Trust
3. View of Coplans’s “Self Portrait (Interlocking Fingers, No. 5),” (1999) in the exhibition “John Coplans.”
4. View of the exhibition “John Coplans.”

Come meet the friends of Handsome Dan, featured in the Prints and Drawings and Photography collection at the Yale Univer...
05/28/2026

Come meet the friends of Handsome Dan, featured in the Prints and Drawings and Photography collection at the Yale University Art Gallery!

In celebration of Yale College Reunions, this May 29th we will spend Open Friday looking at how artists from Dürer to Picasso have depicted man's best friend. 🐶

Date: Tomorrow, Friday May 29, 2026
Time: 3-4 pm (drop in anytime!)


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Image details:
1. Handsome Dan looking at Mark Rothko's painting in the Modern and Contemporary Art and Design Gallery at Yale University Art Gallery.
2. Handsome Dan in front of Albert Bierstadt's "Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail" in the American Art Gallery at Yale University Art Gallery.
3. Albrecht Dürer, "Saint Eustace" (detail), ca. 1500-01. Engraving. Yale University Art Gallery, Fritz Achelis Memorial Collection, Gift of Frederic George Achelis, B.A. 1907.

Considered the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day calls upon us to honor the men and women who made the ultimate s...
05/25/2026

Considered the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day calls upon us to honor the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. It's also a day for reflection, remembrance, unity, and peace.

In the early years of the Civil War members of the Hudson and Gartley families of Philadelphia came together to create an extraordinary quilt, which is now featured in the exhibition “Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America's Founding, 1776–1876.” At the center of the quilt is an antique handkerchief from the 1820s depicting the Declaration of Independence within a chain of states. When the handkerchief was first made, a commentator praised its potential for "exciting patriotic feelings, and keeping alive the remembrance of such events."

A generation later, the quilters encircled the handkerchief with squares inscribed with the names of their shared relatives. The composition of family names surrounding states names brings together the genealogy of the family and the nation. The Hudsons and Gartleys were Quaker pacifists and the quilt's emphasis on unity may have been a political statement against the upheaval of the Civil War. One person included on the quilt–Thomas Hudson–would enlist in the Union Army and die in battle.

The quilt is both a celebration and a memorial; a way for the family to keep alive their faith in the nation and the memory of their loved ones.

“Keeping Alive the Remembrance” invites you to explore how remembrance is made through art and the stories we carry forward.


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📷: Visitors in the installation "Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America's Founding, 1776–1876"
📷: View of the installation "Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America's Founding, 1776–1876"
📷: "Quilt", probably made in Philadelphia, ca. 1870. Red, white, blue, beige, printed on solid calico and white cotton. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of the Joel E. and Carole Bernstein Family Collection

Celebrating Mary Cassatt today 💡✨In “The Lamp,” Mary Cassatt invites us into a quiet interior: a young woman seated in a...
05/22/2026

Celebrating Mary Cassatt today 💡✨

In “The Lamp,” Mary Cassatt invites us into a quiet interior: a young woman seated in a comfortable armchair, her back turned as she adjusts her hair, gently fanning herself. An avid printmaker, Cassatt created over two hundred works across three decades, often combining etching, drypoint, and aquatint in a single composition. Inspired by Japanese woodblock prints she encountered in Paris in 1890–91, she began experimenting with different techniques to achieve similar effects of color and flattened space.

Areas of the sheet remain without color and reveal this impression as an early—and possibly unique—state, discovered only in the 2000s. The preparatory drawing shown beside the print helps illuminate her process: by tracing the contours of the drawing over a soft-ground-coated plate, Cassatt could transfer the image through pressure. Her sketch and her print combined offers a rare glimpse into the careful, labor-intensive steps behind the finished work.

In honor of her birthday, visit Cassatt’s work among others in “American Impressionism,” on view through June 14 in the James E. Duffy Gallery for Prints and Drawings on the 4th floor. For more on Cassatt, see “Mary Cassatt: An American in Paris” on view through August 30 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

National Gallery of Art
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Image 1: Mary Cassatt, “The Lamp,” 1890–91. Drypoint, soft-ground etching, and aquatint on paper, from two plates. Gift of Jan and Warren Adelson, Mr. and Mrs. N. Lee Griggs, Jr., B.A. 1951, Anthony M. Schulte, B.A. 1951, Mark Rudkin, B.A. 1951, and purchased with the Everett V. Meeks, B.A. 1901, and the Walter H. and Margaret Dwyer Clemens, B.A. 1951, Funds.

Image 2: Mary Cassatt, "Woman and Lamp," 1890-91. Black chalk and graphite. Bequest of Edith Malvina K. Wetmore

05/21/2026

Join us in sharing the joy of art by stopping by the Gallery to pick up a postcard from our Annual Fund campaign and sharing it with a friend!

Gifts to the Annual Fund provide immediate support and helps make art accessible to all who come through the Gallery’s doors—nearly a quarter of a million visitors a year! Everything we do is made possible through the generosity of friends like you. Thank you.

🎞️ Every face tells a story — and so does every life behind it.August Sander spent over six decades photographing the pe...
05/19/2026

🎞️ Every face tells a story — and so does every life behind it.

August Sander spent over six decades photographing the people of Germany, capturing the diverse social fabric of his country during a period marked by cultural upheaval and change.

What makes Sander's work so powerful is the tension: each portrait is at once a deeply personal image and a window into a broader social type. As Sander himself said, "The individual does not make the history of his time, but he both impresses himself on it and expresses its meaning."

That tension comes to life in the most intimate moments. In “My Wife in Joy and Sorrow,” Sander photographed his wife Anna cradling their twin infants — one of whom did not survive. It is a portrait of a mother, but also of the fragility of life. His eldest son Erich also appears more than once in the project: in one image, he poses with his fellow working-class students, and in another, he is photographed covertly while imprisoned for leftist political activity. The same person, two very different worlds.

Sander's categories — The Farmer; The Skilled Tradesman; The Woman; Classes and Professions; The Artists; The City; and The Last People, Sander’s term for society’s most marginalized— were never meant to contain people neatly. They were meant to open up the complexity of a society in transformation.

📍 “August Sander’s People of the 20th Century” is on view now at the Gallery. Don't miss it.


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📷 August Sander, “My Wife in Joy and Sorrow” [Anna Sander with twins, Sigrid and Helmut Sander], 1911, printed 1990–99 by Gerd Sander. Gelatin silver print. Société Anonyme Acquisition Fund and Katharine Ordway Fund. © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur—August Sander Archiv, Cologne, Germany/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
📷 August Sander, “Working Students” [Erich Sander, left], 1926, printed 1990–99 by Gerd Sander. Gelatin silver print. Société Anonyme Acquisition Fund and Katharine Ordway Fund. © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur—August Sander Archiv, Cologne, Germany/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
📷 August Sander, “Political Prisoner” [Erich Sander], 1943, printed 1990–99 by Gerd Sander. Gelatin silver print. Société Anonyme Acquisition Fund and Katharine Ordway Fund. © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur—August Sander Archiv, Cologne, Germany/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

🎓✨Congratulations to the graduating class of 2026! 🎉🥳In honor of Yale’s 325th Commencement today, the Gallery will be op...
05/18/2026

🎓✨Congratulations to the graduating class of 2026! 🎉🥳

In honor of Yale’s 325th Commencement today, the Gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. We look forward to welcoming graduates and their families! ❤️

Come explore the 6 exhibitions currently open at the Gallery! Swipe through the images or click the link in our bio and select "Current Exhibitions" to see what's on view.


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📷: Visitors entering the Gallery on Chapel Street
📷: Visitors in the exhibition "August Sander’s People of the 20th Century"
📷: Visitors in the exhibition "Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America's Founding, 1776–1876"
📷: Visitors in the exhibition "Jes Fan: Unbounded"
📷: Michèle Wije, Curatorial Project Manager and the exhibition’s organizer during a Gallery talk in the exhibition "Hans Hofmann"
📷: Visitors in the exhibition "American Impressionism"
📷: Visitors sketching in the exhibition "John Coplans"

👁️ Look closer. There's a whole world inside.At first glance, “Gut” by Jes Fan looks like a plain wall with three small ...
05/12/2026

👁️ Look closer. There's a whole world inside.

At first glance, “Gut” by Jes Fan looks like a plain wall with three small openings. But lean in and peer through one of those hand-sculpted holes and something extraordinary reveals itself. ✨

Swipe to see what's waiting on the other side of the wall 👉

Embedded in the wall is a 3D print of Fan's own gastrointestinal tract, which was modeled in resin and then painted and sanded to look like the mottled bark of the Aquilaria tree — the rare source of agarwood. Hidden from sight, it invites the viewer to move in closely and peer through one of three holes, which, with their soft biomorphic shapes, suggest bodily orifices. Fan’s interest in making invisible insides visible can be traced to their study of ancient Japanese sculptures of the Buddha containing scrolls and relics, a tradition revealed by modern imaging technology.

“Gut” is included in the exhibition “Jes Fan: Unbounded” on view now at the Gallery through June 28, 2026.


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Jes Fan, “Gut,” 2023. 3-D print of the artist’s gut, polymer-modified gypsum, fiberglass, glass, and pigment. Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY

This Mother’s Day, we’re highlighting Berthe Morisot; an artist and mother, who, despite limited access to formal traini...
05/10/2026

This Mother’s Day, we’re highlighting Berthe Morisot; an artist and mother, who, despite limited access to formal training for women in 19th-century Paris, helped found the Impressionist movement in 1874.

Throughout her career, Morisot painted many images of women in interiors. Women artists faced restricted avenues for art instruction, as Paris’s most established art school did not begin admitting women until 1896. Morisot painted friends and members of her family; later in her career she hired female models. This painting, undertaken in the artist’s apartment on the rue Weber, features two such models, Jeanne-Marie and Marcelle. Morisot depicts them as mother and child sharing an intimate exchange—the seated figure reaches toward the standing child, tending to her cloak. The woman’s fingers are barely distinguishable as her skin blends with the fabric of the child’s dress and their arms tenderly connect. Morisot's elegant, Impressionist style of rapid, sketchy strokes, with areas of the canvas left visible, heightens the sense of a fleeting moment.

Today, we invite you to visit this charming painting up close in our 2nd floor European art galleries—and to thank the mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, chosen family, mentors, and caregivers who hold a special place in your lives.

Happy Mother’s Day 💐

The Gallery is free and open today from 11:00 am–5:00 pm. Check the link in our bio to see what's on view.


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🖼️: Berthe Morisot, "Woman and Child," 1894. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Edith Malvina K. Wetmore

The Gallery’s latest audio tour “Thomas Eakins and the Human Body” is now available on the Gallery’s free digital app! ...
05/08/2026

The Gallery’s latest audio tour “Thomas Eakins and the Human Body” is now available on the Gallery’s free digital app!

Led by Yale Class of 2025 student Camila Otero, this focused tour explores how Thomas Eakins studied the human body with extraordinary rigor and care. Through paintings and preparatory studies, visitors encounter Eakins’s commitment to anatomical accuracy, movement, and lived experience—whether in moments of athletic exertion or quiet repose. Drawing on works in the Gallery’s collection, the tour reveals how Eakins combined scientific observation, mathematical precision, and close looking to render the body as a central subject in modern American art.

Listen to the tour next time you're in the Gallery! Visit this link on our website to download the digital app: https://artgallery.yale.edu/visit/mobile-app


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Image 1: Composite image of details from Thomas Eakins’ study sketch and completed painting for Rail Shooting on the Delaware, 1876. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903

Image 2: Camila Otero, B.A. 2025, with Flor Garduño's “Canasta de luz [Basket of Light], Sumpango, Guatemala, from the series ‘Witnesses of Time’ (1989, printed 1993)”

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1111 Chapel Street
New Haven, CT
06511

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Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
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