Yale University Art Gallery. The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It holds Night Café, the iconic painting by Vincent van Gogh which depicts the interior of a café in Arles, France, where the artist spent several months in 1888. It also has Titian's Portrait of a Man with a Blue Sleeve, considered one of the greatest paintings of the 16th century. Although all cultures and periods are represented, the gallery emphasizes early Italian painting, African sculpture, and modern art. The Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in the western hemisphere. The gallery was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and designed the original Picture Gallery. This building, on the university's Old Campus, was razed in 1901. A Tuscan romanesque building, designed by Egerton Swartwout, was built in 1928. The gallery's main building was built in 1953, and was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, who taught architecture at Yale. In December 2006, a renovation of this building that returned many spaces to Kahn's original vision was completed by Polshek Partnership Architects. The renovation of the Kahn building was part of a larger renovation and expansion project that began in 1998. It was completed on December 12, 2012, at a cost of $135 million. The expanded space totals 69,975 sq ft. The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums. On the second floor was a very valuable collection of paintings by John Trumbull, mainly of historical events. Among them were his well-known paintings of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery before Quebec, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Declaration of Independence, etc. Trumbull gave the paintings to Yale in consideration of an annuity of $1,000 and subject to the condition that he and his wife should be forever buried beneath the pictures. The Gallery's encyclopedic collections number more than 200,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. In 2005, the museum announced that it had acquired 1,465 gelatin silver prints by the influential American landscape photographer Robert Adams. In 2009, the museum mounted an exhibition of its extensive collection of Picasso paintings and drawings, in collaboration with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. For the first time, portions of the Yale University Library's Gertrude Stein writing archives were displayed next to relevant drawings from Picasso. As an affiliate of Yale University, the gallery offers education programs for university students, New Haven schools, and the general public. One such program is the Gallery Guide program, founded in 1998, which trains undergraduate students to lead tours at the museum. The Yale Art Gallery charges no admission.
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