Collection Study Center

The museum’s Collection Study Center (CSC) is unique within the WSU system. While the new Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU places the arts at the heart of the student experience, the Collection Study Center provides an equally important portal for academic research and professional training through personalized access to the important works in WSU’s permanent collection. This new space, with open collection storage, viewing galleries, classroom areas, and expert collections staff will provide students opportunities to engage in academic research and courses, interdisciplinary collaborations, and professional training to further their chosen career goals.

Search the Collection

You can access the museum’s collection online through our database portal. The digital database is continually growing and improving as our collections staff upload new artworks and their associated records.

Visit the Collection

The Collection Study Center is available for tours by appointment only. To schedule a visit during open hours, please contact our Collection Manager Ann Saberi at amsaberi@wsu.edu.

Scope of the Collection

The museum’s collection is a repository for carefully selected artworks and associated documents that illuminate the evolving story of visual culture. Consideration is given to collecting the work of artists who have expressed a point of view and an inventive and individual approach to rendering and reflecting on their times and the world they live in.

The objects in the collection span a wide variety of approaches to form and content, created by a diverse group of regional, national, and international artists who have helped propel visual culture from the 18th century to the present, with a particular focus on artworks created since 1890, the year Washington State College was established.

The collection is strong in contemporary art, especially British, European, and American prints, drawings, and photography since the 1970s. Highlights include works by many renowned artists, including Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and Carrie Mae Weems.

Small but significant holdings of contemporary Native American art include works by Rick Bartow, Joe Feddersen, Ric Gendron, James Lavadour, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Contemporary glass and ceramic art are also represented. Art commissioned expressly for the museum by Northwest artists Trimpin, Jeffry Mitchell, and Marie Watt round out the museum’s contemporary holdings, and indicate a nascent but important collecting direction.

Community Access

Effective collections stewardship ensures that objects the museum owns, borrows, holds in its custody, and/or uses, are available and accessible to present and future generations. We are committed to providing access to the objects we hold in public trust. Currently we open the CSC by appointment, but as the program grows, it may be possible to staff the collections area to maintain regular hours, providing access to the collection and student-curated exhibitions.

Faculty Partners

The curatorial team welcomes orientation workshops geared to campus faculty partners. The goal of these orientations is to help faculty find ways to utilize collection access to support their curricula and teaching goals. Many departments on campus have voiced their enthusiasm for adapting object-based learning strategies into their pedagogy.