About the Galleries and Collections

Williams Center Gallery
(Morris R.) Williams Center for the Arts
On the College Hill campus
317 Hamilton Street
Easton, Pa. 18042

Contact: (610) 330-5010/5361

Directions
gps address: 317 Hamilton Street, Easton, Pa.

The Williams Center for the Arts is located at the corner of High and Hamilton Streets. Click here to find us using Google Maps.

Parking
On-street parking is limited during the week. A visitor parking deck is located 1/2 block west of the Williams Center, behind Markle Hall, the entrance is from High Street

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(Richard A. and Rissa W.) Grossman Gallery
Williams Visual Arts Building
On the downtown Williams Arts Campus
243 North Third Street
Easton, Pa., 18042

Contact: (610) 330-5828/5361

Directions
gps address: 243 North Third Street, Easton, Pa.
The Williams Visual Arts Building is located at the corner of North Third Street and Bushkill Street, a scant block north of Route 22.

Find the Williams Visual Arts Building on Google maps

Parking
Campus lots are located behind Buck Hall in the Second Street lot (enter from Snyder Street) and Snyder Street Lot, another small lot across from Buck Hall, Click here to view the campus map.

Street parking is also available in downtown Historic Easton, south of the Route 22 overpass.

Art Collections

The College's Art Collection and new Kirby Art Study Center room offers first-hand encounters that are an integral part of teaching and learning across disciplines at the college and forge creative connections that inspire tomorrow’s leaders. The study of original objects can develop skills in close observation, visual and critical analysis, questioning assumptions, evidence-based reasoning, working collaboratively in diverse teams, creative response, and research using primary sources.

Among the rich resources provided for students is a fine, small, art collection. The collection includes 18th through early 21st century American and European paintings, prints, and sculpture; vintage and contemporary photography; and Native American pottery and baskets. Recent acquisitions build on the strength of the existing collections, and teaching areas of faculty.

Highlights of the collection include:

-Kirby Collection of Historical Paintings, assembled by Allan P Kirby, class of 1915, consists of nineteenth and 20th century American portraits, history paintings, and sculpture.

Assembled by Allan P. Kirby in the 1940s and 50s, “It was intended to have broadly represented the many fields of achievement through which men can leave lasting impressions upon the nation.”  Recent additions include a portrait of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsberg–recently commissioned–will be added to the portraits in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights. A selection of the portraits can been seen in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights, built in 1929–30, given by Fred Morgan Kirby, to house the Department of Government and Law. 

Of special note are portraits of Thomas Jefferson at the Natural Bridge, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John Marshall, and Thurgood Marshall.  The Kirby Collection’s history paintings include Barbara Frietchie by Dennis Malone Carter and The Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock by Peter Frederick Rothermel. Other portraits and history paintings can now be viewed in the new the Kirby Art Study Center, at the Williams Center for the Arts.
Vintage and contemporary photographs, including recent transformative gifts (2015-2019) from Bennett J. ’79 and Meg Goodman.* Additional gifts by alumni continue to expand the photography collection.

-Innovative, limited edition prints produced at Lafayette’s Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI)  by renowned national and international women and artists of color.

-British and European paintings were acquired for the 1930s-era Chateau Chavaniac, built as a private retreat by Allan P. Kirby and named after the birthplace of the Marquis de Lafayette. The F. M. Kirby Foundation gave the Chateau, located north of the campus in Easton, with its collection of decorative arts and paintings, to the College in 1984.

-Of course, there are many representations of the Marquis de Lafayette in the collection, including a full-size bronze sculpture of Lafayette by Daniel Chester French, which was cast from a plaster model given to the College by French. Another gift from French is a small bronze cast of the maquette—a small study—for his bas relief sculpture of Lafayette at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, the same plaster model of Lafayette was used for both sculptures.

-A selection of original prints produced at the college’s Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI) by artists of color and women.

-Vintage and contemporary photographs, including recent transformative gifts (2015-2019) from Bennett J. ’79 and Meg Goodman.* of more than 1,200 19th and 20th century has transformed the vintage and contemporary photography collection;  2019 saw the gift of photographs by Larry Fink: his “Fish and Wine” series; “Sense of Sound” the 2008-09 commission to document the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Lafayette and Carnegie Hall, and “Night at the Museum,” which documented the 2014 kick-off capital campaign event held at the American Museum of Natural History; in 2020 photographs from his Fink’s iconic “Social Graces,” were given to the art collecton.

-Two superb Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company figurative stained glass windows (1898 and 1899) depicting Alcuin and Charlemagne and The Death of Sir Philip Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen. The windows were originally installed in Pardee Hall (Alcuin and Charlemagne) and Van Wickle Hall (Sir Philip Sidney).  The windows are now installed in Skillman Library.