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
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 group of nine people standing or sitting in an art museum with paintings on the walls.

The Art of Healing

Physicians from a local hospital gathered at The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center recently to engage in an exercise designed to help them become better doctors.

Students gathered around a glass case in a museum looking in.

Loeb Awarded Grant for Founding Galleries

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was awarded an Implementation Grant by the Terra Foundation for American Art to support the reinstallation of Vassar’s Hudson River School paintings, a core feature of the College’s art collection.

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

Posted

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.

Exhibitions

Edvard Munch, Moonlight I-II, 1896. A color woodcut depicting a solitary figure wearing a wide-brimmed dark hat and dark coat, rendered in deep teal, blue, and golden yellow. The figure's pale, luminous face gazes outward beneath the hat's brim. Behind the figure, vertical wood grain streaks suggest a wall or fence. To the upper left, a green-framed window is visible, and to the upper right, leafy branches drape downward. The overall mood is atmospheric and brooding.

A Living Legacy: Gifts from Lynn Gross Straus

June 20–September 20, 2026

An intricate composition features multiple geometric shapes intertwined with organic forms. A prominent ram's horn spirals outward, surrounded by angular structures and flowing lines that create a sense of movement. The monochromatic palette, primarily in shades of black and gray, is accented by textured patterns, enhancing the depth of the forms. Jagged lines radiate from the background, adding a dynamic quality to the overall visual action.

Atelier 17: Myths in Motion

June 5–August 30, 2026

A figure is seated at a wooden table, engaged in arranging pressed flowers. The individual holds a small branch while surrounded by scattered botanical specimens and open books featuring illustrations. Behind, a richly adorned bookshelf is filled with books, its texture contrasting with the smoothness of the table's surface. Warm lighting casts a soft glow over the scene, enhancing the earthy tones of the flowers and the reds of the chair.

The Botanist at Vassar

April 4–October 4, 2026

A painting of a tranquil river scene, framed by lush greenery and tropical palm trees. A solitary figure stands on the riverbank, partially obscured by dense foliage, while a distant mountain range rises under a soft, pastel sky. The colors transition from muted oranges and pinks near the horizon to softer blues above, suggesting the time of dawn or dusk. Reflections shimmer on the water's surface, enhancing the serene atmosphere of this natural setting.

Splitting the Horizon: Frederic Church Between Border and Bridge

February 21–August 30, 2026

More Exhibitions

Events

Print of a hen with stylized triangular feathers with the texture of lace.

Atelier 17 at 100

On the occasion of the Loeb’s exhibition Atelier 17: Myths in Motion, we are delighted to welcome Christina Weyl, Executive Director of the nonprofit Atelier 17 Project, who will offer new perspectives on the history of the avant-garde printmaking workshop as its centennial approaches.

This event is free and open to the public.

A person sits at a desk looking at dried plant specimens in front of a mural of oversized plant specimens.

Artist Talk: Julia Whitney Barnes

Poughkeepsie-based artist Julia Whitney Barnes joins us to share insights into her wide-ranging artistic practice, which is based in reverent observation of the natural world. Whitney Barnes’s work is a highlight of the Loeb’s exhibition The Botanist at Vassar, on view through October 4.

This event is free and open to the public.

John Murphy and Ruby Funfrock stand in the Loeb's Print study room, with prints on the shelf behind them.

In Conversation: Teaching and Learning from the Straus Collection

Join us as we mark the closing weekend of A Living Legacy: Gifts from Lynn Gross Straus with a program featuring three generations of scholars who have been impacted by Lynn's generosity: Elizabeth Prelinger, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Georgetown University; John Murphy, the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Loeb; and Ruby Funfrock, Vassar Class of 2024 and former Loeb curatorial student assistant.

This event is free and open to the public.

Past Items

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Off the Wall
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Vassar College

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