Brauer Museum of Art

BE INSPIRED

The Brauer Museum of Art is home to a nationally recognized collection of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century American art. It also houses the largest known collection of works by Junius R. Sloan (1827-1900), a Hudson River School painter who lived and worked in the Midwest. Other points of focus within the collection include world religious art and Midwestern regional art.


Museum Hours

Wednesdays 10am – 8pm
Thursday through Saturday 10am – 4pm

Closed March 3rd – 17th

Summer Hours

May 15 – August 30th

Wednesdays through Saturday
10am – 4pm

Closed June 19th and July 4th


MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

2023 was something of a wild rollercoaster ride. There were many thrilling highs. In January, the museum showcased its remarkable collection of African American art with the exhibition Celebrating Black Artists. Mounted in conjunction with campus-wide events for MLK Day and Black History Month, the Brauer’s holdings were augmented with loans from the personal collection of Professor Michael Chikeleze. For the first time since 2019, the Brauer hosted the Senior Thesis Art Show, presenting the art of Anna Beres, Eric Hernandez, Kayla Smith, and Nathan Vargas. Under the direction of Research Professor John Ruff, the Brauer Colloquium brought faculty, students, and staff from diverse disciplines into the museum to explore and interpret the collection in light of their personal research. During the concluding series of gallery talks, we heard from linguistics professor Salena Anderson, economist Sara Gunderson, professor of mechanical engineering and bioengineering Reva Johnson, and psychology professor Angie Vernon.

We plunged at the loss of three of the museum’s most significant supporters: Richard Duesenberg, Josephine Ferguson, and Philipp Brockington. The Brauer would be unrecognizable without their strategic collecting. Richard and Phyllis (d. 2019) Duesenberg augmented the collection’s founding gift of landscapes by Junius Sloan (1827 – 1900) with works by Asher B. Durand (1796 – 1886) and John Frederick Kensett (1816 – 1872). Philipp Brockington and Howard Reeve (d. 2011) set about creating a collection of 19th-century portraiture to provide context for Junius Sloan’s early career as a portraitist.  The Brauer’s strong holdings in later twentieth-century art is built upon the contributions of Josephine and Byron (d. 2005) Ferguson. Through Josephine’s friendship with the recently-deceased Richard Hunt (1935 – 2023), the Brauer acquired ten of his pieces that now constitute a special commemorative exhibition.

Nothing quite lifts the spirits like working with students. Through February, alumna Kayla Smith (VU’23) leads the construction of a collaborative collage portrait of Martin Luther King entitled Our Emerging Dream. Her project is accompanied by a small installation of collages by Black artists. Patterns and Light: The Photographs of Howard Bond was curated by Hope Biermann (CC ’24) and runs through the semester, as does Associate Professor Jantzi’s Out of Body exhibition of figural work from the permanent collection. We continue to mine the depths of the Brauer’s extraordinary collection and encourage you to visit and re-engage with this precious cultural gem at the University and in our region of northwest Indiana.

— Jonathan Canning,
Director of the Brauer Museum of Art

2023 in Review

7,181

Museum Attendance

20

Exhibitions & Installations

372

Works of Art Exhibited 

Museum patrons viewing a sculpture exhibit

Brauer Museum of Art

Contact Information

Valparaiso University
Center for the Arts
1709 Chapel Drive
Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493

Phone: 219.464.5048
Fax: 219.464.5244
Email: brauer.museum@valpo.edu

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