The University Museum
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Welcoming visitors for over 130 years
Opening its doors to the first class of Southern Illinois Normal University students in 1874, the University Museum has since provided over 130 years of service to the University community, to the Southern Illinois region and to visitors from across the country and beyond.

Today, the University Museum presents exhibits and programs on the arts, humanities and sciences in a free and friendly space on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus.

Museum News

A $10,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts will help the Museum frame its Vogel Collection for an exhibit in Fall 2010 as Carbondale Community Arts' 12 Biennial. The grant will also support art workshops for Southern Illinois middle and high school students.

WSIU-TV will show a documentary on Herb and Dorothy Vogel, October 13, 9-10 p.m. Illinois's 50 Works from the Vogel Collection: 50 Works for 50 States has been donated to the University Museum. We should receive them this Fall.

Two professional curators will help the museum curate the Vogel Collection and the Andy Warhol collection. Mel Watkin who will curate the Vogel Collection is the Founding Director of the Public Policy Research Center Gallery and Photographic Project at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has served as curator for the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis and for the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC.

Dr. Jordy Jones, photographic historian and Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema & Photography, will curate the Museum's Andy Warhol photographic collection.

The Trip to Spain had to be cancelled because of lack of participants. Let the Museum know if you have ideas for other trips.

What's Ahead? A Year of Outstanding Photography

The 2009-2010 academic year will see six new exhibits featuring masters of photography. From pioneer photographers such as Jacob Riis and Edward Steichen to up and coming photographers like Jennifer Johns, from Steven Poster's meditative, large scale studies of the human scene caught in photographs, to Gary Kolb and Jay Needham's multi sensory exploration of Antarctica, you'll see hundreds of photographs. Masters of Photography from the Museum's Collection is on exhibit now and continues through May 2010. (Pictured left:  Edward Steichen's photograph of Gloria Swanson, 1920, from the Masters of Photography exhibition.)

January 24 – March 21, 2010, the University Museum will host the traveling exhibition, "Ansel Adams: The Man Who Captured the Earth's Beauty," from the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina. Because of the expense involved, there will be an admission fee of $5 per person; however, all secondary students and college students with an i.d. will be admitted for free.  The exhibit features twenty-five of his large scale photographs including his famous "Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California," © by the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.