Home to the Berea College Art Collection, the Doris Ulmann Galleries provide exciting opportunities for engaging with visual art and material culture from across the world, from the ancient past to our present day.

The Doris Ulmann Galleries educate, inspire, and challenge the broader Berea College community by showcasing high-quality art exhibitions and by interpreting and preserving the culturally significant Berea College Art Collection.

The Berea College Art Collection was established in 1935 as a teaching collection with the purpose of providing Berea College students with direct access to a wide variety of artistic styles, mediums, and techniques. Since then, the Collection has been stewarded and used in ways that seek to expand our understanding of what art is and what it can be for our society.

Today, the Collection contains over 16,500 artworks, artifacts, and objects of material culture that span roughly 5,000 years of human creativity and represent cultures from across the globe. As the largest university art collection in the region, it is an invaluable resource that directly supports Berea College’s liberal arts mission.

The Berea College Art Collection grew from the belief that art and visual culture are critical towards helping us to understand the world around us. Students can access the art collection by visiting the curated exhibitions in the Galleries, scheduling an independent research visit, or participating in a class visit with their professors. A portion of the collection can also be viewed on our online database, which is continuously updated as we work towards fully documenting and sharing the artworks and artifacts in the Collection.

Labor students at the Galleries learn all aspects of collections management and exhibition design, from caring for artworks behind the scenes to installing and marketing exhibitions and planning events. These hands-on learning experiences provide students with advanced skills that prepare them for work in the fields of museum work, art history, public art, cultural heritage management, and much, much more.

In addition to showcasing the Berea College Art Collection, the Doris Ulmann Galleries host a wide and exciting array of rotating exhibitions featuring art and craft by artists from around the country. Our robust programming schedule includes artist talks, hands-on workshops, exhibition receptions, guest lectures, gallery tours, and more. There is always something going on at the Galleries!

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Berea College | Rogers-Traylor Art Building | Chestnut and Ellipse Streets | Berea, KY 40404 | 859-985-3083 | dulmanngalleries@berea.edu | Monday – Friday, 8:00am – 6:00pm