Kentucky Library and Museum Online -- Kentucky Museum Art Collection

Art Collection

More than 1,000 paintings, prints, and sculptures make up the Art collection. The bulk of the collection is divided into four categories: Kentucky artists, prints, C. Perry Snell Collection, and folk art collection.

Artists represented in the first category are individuals with ties to Kentucky. They include Clement Reeves Edwards, Harlan Hubbard, Alphonse and Juliette Desport, Harvey Joiner, Sarah Gaines Peyton, and Ivan Wilson. The most important artist whose work is represented in the collection is Matthew Harris Jouett (1787-1827) to whom portraits of Colonel Joseph H. Hawkins and Mrs. Georgia Anne Nicholas Hawkins are attributed.

The print collection is composed of historical works by artists such as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin to modern prints by Jim Dine, James Rosenquist, Victor Vasarely, and Robert Motherwell. Many were acquired in the 1970s through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts or as a gift from Harry L. Jackson of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

More than 350 works make up the C. Perry Snell Collection. Donated to Western Kentucky University in 1929, it includes 144 miniatures, several icons, and a copy, possibly sixteenth century Italian, of Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the Mona Lisa.

The Kentucky Museum includes several hundred examples of folk art. The majority were acquired in 1987 for the exhibit, "Handmade Harvest: A Celebration of Tobacco Crafts." Important Kentucky folk artists represented in the collection include Unto Jarvi, Helen LaFrance Orr, Lestel and Ollie Childress, Virginia Petty, and Noah Kinney.

Objects are available for researchers subject to museum policies and procedures. For more information contact the Museum Registrar/Collections Curator (Phone: 270-745-2592) or write The Kentucky Museum, Western Kentucky University, One Big Red Way, Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576. Prior appointment is required.

Objects described on this web page may not be on exhibit. To learn more about what is currently on display, link to our exhibit pages.