Acquiring with a Purpose: Reimagining Davidson’s Art Collection

It is no surprise that when Davidson College’s art collection began, it reflected the Eurocentric canon that has dominated art history for centuries. When first-year student Gordon Horton ‘42 organized the first-ever art exhibition on campus, the year was 1938, and the college consisted of an all-male student body, not to mention the lack of diversity among professors. Much like the college, the collection, in its early days during the 1950s, consisted primarily of artists who were white males.

Today, a student like Horton would not recognize the Galleries’ collection, which consists of over 4,000 works. The collection serves as a teaching resource, used by faculty and students across disciplines to engage with ideas through visual art. As our course offerings have become more diverse over the years, our collection has evolved alongside them. Today, the Galleries work to acquire pieces by artists with diverse backgrounds, identities, and perspectives, working in various media.

As interns at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, we are currently conducting a project that consists of collecting demographic data of the artists represented in our collection. Having this data will allow us to more accurately identify the gaps in representation to ensure that we are curating a collection that is representative of the college's academic and cultural values.

Our demographic project has inspired this exhibition, which highlights works in the collection by artists from historically underrepresented groups. This show features artists whose identities include Black American, Botswanan, Canadian, Iranian, and Syrian, as well as female, LGBTQ+, and non-binary. By centering these voices, the exhibition underscores the Galleries’ ongoing effort to broaden representation within the collection and invites viewers to reflect on how race, gender, and sexuality shape both artistic expression and institutional narratives. On the label of each work, we have listed known demographic information so as to highlight identity characteristics and urge the viewer to reflect not only upon how these might influence each artist’s practice, but also to consider the variety of voices and stories reflected in the collection.

Several of these works are sourced through various college initiatives. Hayv Kharaman’s Star was acquired through the college’s course offering “Buying and Collecting Art” in Spring 2024. In this course, students learned about collecting practices and methodologies and had the opportunity to make decisions about what pieces to purchase through an acquisition fund specifically created for student purchases.

Additionally, two pieces by Kaitlyn S.C. Hatch, Akshobya, Vajra Family, and Vairocana, Buddha Family, were acquired for the ArtMate program. Launched in 2022, the ArtMate Program allows students to choose a piece from a selection of works for display in their residence hall room. We have purchased ten pieces, acquired several others through donation, framed works from the collection, and purchased and installed hanging systems through the ArtMate GiveCampus Campaign. We hope ArtMate encourages students to imagine themselves becoming collectors eventually, after living with art.

Lastly, Davidson College is fortunate to possess various Polaroids by Andy Warhol thanks to the 2007 Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. Through this initiative, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts donated over 28,500 of Warhol’s Polaroids to over 180 U.S. institutions of higher education. The goal of the program was to promote increased access to Warhol’s photographic work, which often served to inspire his paintings and prints. These photographs serve various important functions, and students and faculty alike often display the works as didactic tools for analysis and teaching. This past Spring, ART300 students featured one such Polaroid in an exhibition exploring gender and binaries, and this Fall, another Polaroid was on view in a student’s exhibition focused on queer identity.

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to Lia Newman and Marisa Pascucci. Thanks to their invaluable guidance, we have had the opportunity to grow as students and curators.

- Sabrina Bonavita, Charlotte LaBenne, Heidi McGannon ‘26