Miami University Art Museum & Sculpture Park
801 S. Patterson AveOxford, Ohio 45056
513-529-2232 | http://miamioh.edu/cca/art-museum/index.html
Miami University Art Museum & Sculpture Park
In the corner of Miami University’s campus, the Miami University Art Museum’s unique architecture rises out of three acres of rolling grass filled with sculpture. Stroll around the sculpture park and the museum’s galleries to immerse yourself in arts and culture enriched by student involvement.
The Miami University Art Museum, a piece of sculptural architecture itself, lives in the corner of Miami University’s campus among three acres of rolling grass filled with sculpture. The museum, completed in 1978, was designed by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Chicago and its modern, geometric peaks stand in contrast with the red brick Georgian Revival architecture of most of Miami’s campus. Mark di Suvero’s 1995 sculpture For Kepler beckons the campus community and visitors to the museum and sculpture park with its bright red steel beams. More treasures await in the sculpture park, including renowned land artist Nancy Holt’s 1979-1981 earthwork Star-Crossed, an earthen mound covering two concrete tubes designed to track the positions of the stars in the sky. As with other pieces of land art, the natural deterioration of Star-Crossed is part of the life of the artwork, strengthening connections between Holt’s environmental art and ancient earthworks found in Ohio. Pick up a sculpture park guide from the museum’s entrance to learn more about each of the sculptures throughout the museum’s grounds.
Inside the museum, three galleries feature new exhibitions each semester- many of them centered around the curatorial contributions or artwork of Miami University students. Permanent exhibitions, which are regularly refreshed, share global perspectives from the museum’s collection and a glance at Western art history. Often included in permanent exhibitions are pieces from the museum’s Edna M. Kelly Collection of Native American ceramics, jewelry, textiles, and basketry from western North America, which Kelly acquired through her work as an antiques dealer and travel to the American Southwest.
Don’t miss the museum’s Charles M. Messer Leica Collection, the most complete privately assembled collection of Leica cameras in the country, and one of the largest in the world. A permanent display of a selection of the cameras and an interactive timeline demonstrate rapid changes in camera technology from view cameras of the 1900s to electronic film cameras of the 1970s. Complemented by the museum’s photography collection, the Leica collection helps tell the story of art history and the movement of traditional art media from representational to abstract with the invention and adoption of photography.