The Frances Lehman   
Loeb Art Center
The interior of a gallery: gray walls, monochrome photos on the walls, and a table with more photos in the middle of the room.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
A person stands with their back to the viewer, looking at a grid of colored artworks on a gallery wall.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Black and white photo of two people having dinner in a room.

The Frances Lehman

Loeb Art Center

A walkway enclosed in glass windows curves past a metal sculpture. Trees are visible in the background.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
A person with sunglasses and black curly hair poses in front of paintings in a gallery.
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
An aerial view of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free and open to all. The Loeb Art Center enhances and supports the College’s goals of leadership, scholarship, and integrative learning.

The Loeb achieves this through the preservation, documentation, interpretation, presentation, and development of its collections; and through a dynamic program of temporary exhibitions and educational activities aimed at diverse audiences. Art should stand “boldly forth as an educational force,” declared founder Matthew Vassar. His college was the country’s first to be founded with a gallery and teaching collection.

News

A close-up of a rustic metal sculpture with a weathered, rusted surface. A small, green-patina mask of a human face is embedded in a cutout of the rusty metal. The sculpture is outdoors, with green grass and trees visible in the background.

Monumental Sculptural Artwork Added to Vassar College Grounds

Posted

Soaring 18 feet high, seven sentinels made of weathered steel surround a female bronze figure that appears to emerge from the earth. This dynamic and awe-inducing public artwork, situated at the northwest perimeter of the campus, is Vassar College’s newest public art acquisition.

The wall drawing in The Loeb, described in the text.

Summer Art Programming, Exhibitions Announced at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar

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With the arrival of summer, Vassar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is rolling out the red carpet for art lovers this season with a wide range of events and exhibitions spanning improvised performances utilizing the gestural composing language of Soundpainting to exhibitions that explore the reciprocal relationship between place and person, showcase the museum’s collection of Hudson River School art, and examine images of the body fragmented into pieces.

Tiger painted in ink on paper mounted on silk brocade six-fold screen.

Loeb’s New Grant Launches Restoration of 17th-century Japanese Painted Screen

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was awarded funding by Tokyo-based Sumitomo Foundation toward the restoration of a 17th-century Japanese painted screen. A rarity and a cherished work in the Loeb’s Asian art collection, the screen was painted by Unkoku Toeki in the early 1600s. Its conservation will allow it to remain a popular teaching object for Art History at Vassar.

Black and white photo of a person seated on the floor holding a camera.

The Loeb Awarded New Grant to Travel Rollie McKenna ’40 Photography Exhibition

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was awarded an additional grant by The Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation in support of an effort with the Center for Creative Photography (University of Arizona, Tucson) to share the collaborative exhibition Making a Life in Photography: Rollie McKenna with audiences in the southwestern U.S. The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of the photography of illustrious Vassar alumna Rosalie (“Rollie”) McKenna, Class of 1940.

The wall drawing in The Loeb, described in the text.

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Presents Water/Bodies: Sa’dia Rehman

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The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar has collaborated with artist and researcher, Sa’dia Rehman on a new exhibition, Water/Bodies: Sa’dia Rehman, the centerpiece of which is a massive site-responsive wall drawing that engages critically with Vassar’s founding collection of Hudson River School art.

Exhibitions

A darkened scene features two illuminated rectangular screens side by side against a black background. The left screen shows the shadow of an outstretched hand and forearm, angled upward with fingers splayed. The right screen displays the shadowy silhouette of a figure bent forward, hands clasped low and head down, partially obscured by darkness. Two small desk lamps sit below the screens, casting faint light upward.

Vito Acconci: Scenes from This Side of the Camp

January 10–March 29, 2026

A black and white photograph of two clocks balanced on a scale.

Chronostasia: Select Acquisitions 2020–2025

September 4, 2025–February 1, 2026

Illustrative diptych of two side views of one car in black and white.

For Maria: Rose B. Simpson and Pueblo Pottery

August 21, 2025–February 15, 2026

More Exhibitions

Events

Photo of woman seated writing poetry with tall mountains in the background

Artist Talk with Cecilia Vicuña

The Loeb welcomes acclaimed Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña for an artist talk in conjunction with the closing of Chronostasia: Select Acquisitions 2020–2025. 

Free and open to the public.

Adult and child crouching and below a painting on the wall while looking at. The adult is pointing at the painting.

Family Fun at the Loeb

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Join us for free drop-in family programs on select Sundays this winter and spring. Each date will feature a different hands-on art activity inspired by art on view. Activities can be modified for all ages, but are best suited for children ages 5 and up. 

Free and open to the public.

Portrait of artist Rose B. Simpson seated in front of an adobe wall

Artist Talk with Rose B. Simpson

Rose B. Simpson is a powerful voice in contemporary art who works in various media, including—but not limited to—sculpture, performance, and poetry. Her monumental sculpture Seed is the latest permanent addition to Vassar’s campus art collection, and the first by an Indigenous artist.

Free and open to the public.

A simple line icon of two people standing together, arms around each other's shoulders.

Bring a Friend Day

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Do you know someone who has been meaning to visit The Loeb but hasn’t made it happen yet? Or someone who thinks art isn’t for them, and you’d like to convince them otherwise? Please join us for our third annual Bring a Friend Day, and enjoy the museum and special activities—together. The day’s offerings include art-making, engaging mini-tours, and light refreshments.

Free and open to the public.

Past Items

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Off the Wall
Perspectives from Students

Vassar College

124 Raymond Ave
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
Main (845) 437-5237 | Info (845) 437-5632