Visit the Museum

The UIMA opened in 1969, although the art collections of the University of Iowa predate the Museum of Art by several decades. During the 1940s and 1950s, the University's School of Art and Art History presented exhibitions of contemporary art and acquired works from these exhibitions. Many of the Museum's most important paintings were acquired during these years, including Max Beckmann's Karneval, and Joan Miro's 1939 A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Alseep in the Shade of a Cobweb. Jackson Pollock's Mural was given to the University by Peggy Guggenheim in 1953.