The Art Museum, almost equidistant from Nassau Hall and the main portal of the Chapel, can be located from afar by Picasso's imposing "Head of a Woman" (one of the Putnam Memorial sculptures), which stands in front of the glass facade. The museum's dominant characteristic is a refreshing openness. It shares an entrance with McCormick Hall, which houses the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Marquand Art Library, and occupies the site of the original Romanesque-style structure, built in the 1880s when the new department was organized by Allan Marquand 1874. He felt strongly that students should be given access to original works of art and insisted that a museum be part of the program. The department, library, and museum soon outgrew this building, but it was not until the end of the First World War that relief could be obtained. Then McCormick Hall was built to accommodate the department and library, thus allowing the museum more space in the old quarters.

When Marquand retired in 1922 after four decades of developing the University's resources in art and archaeology, administrative responsibilities were divided; C. Rufus Morey became chairman of the department and Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., became director of the museum, a position he held long past the conventional retirement age until men began to return from military service in World War II. Under Mather the museum continued to grow until its walls fairly bulged, but conditions during the war and urgent priority for the University Library made it necessary to defer expansion. Ernest T. DeWald, like his predecessors a specialist in Italian art, became director in 1946 and, not long before retiring in 1960, was involved with plans for the new building, designed by Steinmann and Cain and made possible by the University's $53 million drive. Completion of the plans and then two years of functioning only as an office in Green Hall Annex marked the beginning of Patrick J. Kelleher's directorship. The excitement of installing the University's works of art in the new museum, many of them not seen for years because of inadequate space, culminated in the dedication of the building in June 1966 and in the rewarding response of enthusiastic visitors to the round of activities that were possible in the new structure. Peter C. Bunnell, who succeeded Kelleher as director in 1973 and returned to full-time teaching in the Department of Art and Archaeology five years later, developed and guided a dynamic program that reached beyond campus and community. In 1978 his successor, Fred S. Licht, came back to Princeton, where he once taught, to carry on the continuous challenge of putting the Museum to stimulating use for all concerned with achievement in the visual arts.

Many alumni and friends contributed to the new building; the entire quota was met by designated gifts. The most generous individual donor was Carl Otto von Kienbusch '06, a steady benefactor since his student days. The concerted effort of the Class of 1929, which adopted the museum as its special project, assured final success.

Through the decades the museum has received generous help in developing the collections. During the first years Marquand established an endowment for the purchase of works of art. Other endowments followed: The Caroline G. Mather Fund, given by Professor Mather, his brother and sisters, in memory of their mother; The Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund, left by Clifton R. Hall of the Department of History, to provide for additions to the collections of prints and drawings he bequeathed; The John Maclean Magie and Gertrude Magie Fund and the Fowler McCormick '21 Fund for acquisitions; the Mildred Clarke Pressinger von Kienbusch Memorial Fund for publishing the museum's semi-annual bulletin which Mr. Kienbusch sponsored from its beginning in 1942. Several other funds, not endowed, but replenished periodically, give generous assistance in various areas of the museum's operation. The Friends of the Museum, formed in 1950, have provided for purchases of works of art, in addition to generating support for the exhibition program.

Every museum works within defined borders to be effective. Since Princeton's is a teaching museum, the scope of the collections is approximately that of the art department's curriculum. It ranges in time from ancient cultures (the Mediterranean world, the Far East, and Meso-America) to the present. Geographically, the emphasis is upon western Europe, China and Japan, Central America, and the United States. Particular areas of strength are in classical antiquities; Italian paintings; prints, photographs and drawings of European and American schools; Chinese paintings and ceremonial bronzes. The museum's possessions are exhibited on a rotating basis, which is determined largely by the requirement of certain courses. Loan exhibitions are arranged to supplement the permanent collections, as well as to bring in material the museum does not attempt to collect. Certain collections (e.g., prints and drawings), by their nature cannot be shown frequently, but are available by appointment to serious students and scholars.

Allan Marquand made many gifts, including one of the Museum's treasures -- Hieronymous Bosch's painting, "Christ before Pilate." Frank Jewett Mather's collection of Italian drawings includes many gems, among them a study by Carpaccio for one of his wall-paintings in Venice. The 1938 bequest of Dan Fellows Platt 1895 provided an unusually rich concentration in drawings by Italian seventeenth-century artists; his Italian paintings include important early works that dovetail well with the generally later Italian paintings given in 1935 by Henry White Cannon '10. A collection of about five hundred Chinese snuff bottles bequeathed by James A. Blair '03 is admired by specialists and amateurs alike. In 1947, in honor of the University's Bicentennial, DuBois S. Morris 1893 presented his collection of Chinese paintings, which contains an outstanding Sung Dynasty landscape. Through the years Carl Otto von Kienbusch '06 underwrote the acquisition of many objects. The ideal donor, he imposed no preferences and, as a result, the collection named in memory of his elder son and namesake represents many periods and places. A striking object in this collection, and one of the museum's masterpieces, is a polychrome wooden statue of Kwan Yin of the Sung Dynasty. The 1933 bequest of Junius S. Morgan 1888 brought to the museum an important group of Greek vases and an extraordinary assemblage of prints, including a nearly complete series of the engravings and etchings of Jacques Callot. A new area of collection was initiated in 1971 when David H. McAlpin '20 gave about five hundred photographs and a fund for the purchase of additional examples of photography as an artistic medium.

The present museum and its collections are a fitting fulfillment of the pioneering efforts of the first two directors, Professors Marquand and Mather, who together served for more than half a century. A bronze plaque in the entrance court records their great contribution to Princeton:

BY SCHOLARSHIP, VISION, AND GENEROSITY, THEY MADE POSSIBLE A COMMUNITY OF STUDENTS AND WORKS OF ART

Frances F. Jones

Source: Leitch p. 29 ff