Credit: Carol Gao
The Penn Art Collection is debuting an art lending program for students living in campus housing.
With 38 original artworks available — many of which are created by Penn graduates — students can fill an “art match” form to be paired with one piece for the 2025-26 academic year. On Sept. 16, an exhibition of the collection will open at the Arts Lounge at Penn Live Arts, with viewing hours from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
“I’m always thinking about how to raise the profile of the collection and serve the student population, in the absence of having a brick and mortar museum where students can come and see the artworks,” Penn Art Collection director Lynn Dolby told The Daily Pennsylvanian. “With students, they have so many possibilities and options for how to spend their time, and sometimes going to an exhibition opening can feel like work, so this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
Taking inspiration from similar initiatives at schools such as Oberlin and the University of Chicago, works were selected from a portfolio gifted by the Penn MFA class of 1999.
“I’ve been holding onto this portfolio [since the pandemic], and it occurred to me that those artworks would be perfect to start this program,” Dolby said. “We selected 37 works to get framed that would be a respite from the day to day. Pieces that were very colorful and just beautiful to look at.”
Dolby also had “several meetings with Penn Residential Housing” to develop a plan for installing the artwork, including having building engineers work with the students directly and providing microfiber cloths and an art handling guide.
“Being able to have artwork in your space over time changes your experience of it, and I think that’s really enriching and important,” Dolby added.
The initiative also granted Penn students interested in curatorial and conservation work an opportunity to intern through the Summer Humanities Internship Program.
“It seemed really interesting to interact so closely with works of art, and a lot of my job was working on the inventory that they update every year,” College sophomore Nina Mayers said. “A lot of my job was either physically inventorying works, recording if there’s any damage, or reaching out to different building managers around campus and having them conduct their own building inventory.”
For the art loan program, Mayers was specifically focused on the “documentation of [the portfolio], researching the different artists, and cataloging the data into our collections management system.”
“It’s meant to be very accessible for students,” Mayers added. “The art collection wants to have more face-to-face interaction with students, and I was blown away multiple times this summer by how many works by famous artists or historical pieces are in the collection, so I think it’s a good move to incorporate art into student spaces.”
Dolby also partnered with other art organizations on campus, including Penn Live Arts and The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, to flesh out opportunities for student interaction with the program.
Sachs Program for Arts Innovation director John McEnery said that Dolby’s idea to let students borrow artwork was inspired by the practice of Penn faculty borrowing pieces from the Penn Art Collection to display in their offices.
“She rightly asked, ‘Why can’t we do that with students?’” McEnery said. “We have this exhibition space that we program with Penn Live Arts in the Annenberg Center, so we [decided to] hang them up and host a party to bring students in.”
McEnery also added that the program lets students “see the continuum of art that’s been happening at Penn.”
“It’s a critical moment for an individual when they’re in college, see the potential that they have, and have that actually take place with either one of our grants or just taking an art class,” McEnery said. “I think that’s what [the faculty and different centers] are focused on. We really want students to be part of the arts community here and carry that on throughout their lives.”
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