University Art Collection

The Georgetown University Art Collection is housed within the Booth Family Center for Special Collections at Lauinger Library. The Booth Family Center also stewards the University’s rare books, manuscripts, and archives, preserving and protecting these resources for future generations. These non-circulating holdings are used in teaching, research, exhibitions and outreach. The Art Collection is searchable online and visitors are welcome to use the collections in our reading room.

The legacy University Art Collection is composed mostly of donations from alumni and friends over the course of Georgetown’s long history and thus reflects manifold tastes and collecting interests. It includes paintings, antiques, sculpture, graphic media, and objets d'art. Many of the historic paintings, documented in the University Archives since the early years of Georgetown College, represent religious subjects, portraiture and landscape.

Today the bulk of the Art Collection comprises works on paper including prints, posters, and photographs. The collection is strong in 20th-century American prints, photojournalism, and works with local significance by artists of the surrounding area. The result of generous gifts and some judicious acquisitions, the core of the print collection was assembled by Joseph A. Haller, S.J. (1920 – 2008). The collection continues to expand under the current curator, with the primary aim of serving faculty and students across all disciplines. Rotating exhibitions from the fine prints collection are displayed in the Library’s Charles Marvin Fairchild Memorial Gallery throughout the year, supporting teaching and research across disciplines.

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