Fisk University Galleries

The Fisk University Galleries consists of two galleries, the Carl Van Vechten Gallery and the Aaron Douglas Gallery. The Carl Van Vechten Gallery is housed in this building, which was built in 1889 as the university's first gymnasium. The Aaron Douglas Gallery is located on the third floor of the John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library. The Galleries' collection contains more than 4,000 works of art, the oldest of which are three hundred years old. Several world-renowned artists are represented in the collection including Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Diego Rivera, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz.

The Carl Van Vechten Gallery building was erected in large part to the effort of student William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who is better known as W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) and became one of the country's eminent African-American intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century. He graduated from Fisk in 1888 with a bachelor of arts degree. That year he also led the effort, in conjunction with the Fisk Alumni Association, to raise funds for a new gym. The red-brick building was completed in 1889 and also served as a mechanical arts building.

When a new gym building was constructed in 1948, the 1888 building was converted into the art gallery in 1949 and named after Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), who was a music critic, author, photographer, and art collector from New York. He was also a Fisk University benefactor. His suggested to acclaimed painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), who was married to noted photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), that she donate 19 of her late husband's photographs and dozens of paintings in his collection to the university. O'Keeffe donated two paintings as well. The gallery building was renovated in 1984. In 1987, the state legislature created an endowment for the gallery which made it free for anyone to visit.

"About Fisk University Galleries." Fisk University Galleries. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.fiskuniversitygalleries.org/new-page.

"The Alfred Stieglitz Collection/The Civil Rights March." The Historical Marker Database. Accessed July 26, 2023. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=207834.

Mitchell, Reavis L. "Van Vechten Gallery of Fisk University." Tennessee Encyclopedia. October 8, 2023. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/van-vechten-gallery-of-fisk-university.