Payne Gallery, Moravian University

The Frank E. and Seba B. Payne Gallery is the jewel that crowns the arts campus of Moravian University in historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1982 the extraordinary generosity of the first woman to serve as Chair of the Board of Directors, Priscilla Payne Hurd, made possible the dream of the long-serving Chair of the Art Department, Rudy Ackerman. Situated within the walls of what in 1911 was originally a small gymnasium on the campus of Moravian Seminary and College for Women, Payne Gallery now is a spacious three-storied exhibition space. In 2001 the interior of the gallery was renovated to Smithsonian exhibition standards. In 2016 an exhibition space devoted to the permanent collection and a climate-controlled storage vault were constructed in the lower level.

Payne Gallery's permanent collection focuses on American art of the 19th and 20th centuries. It has its roots in an inaugural gift of a turn-of-the-century figure by Realist Susan MacDowell Eakins; in the University's long association with 19th-century landscape painters (foremost among them Gustav Grunewald who was a faculty member at Moravian); and in the tuition of its prominent alumna, photographer Gertrude Käsebier. Today the collection highlights include the Pennsylvania Impressionists Fern Coppedge, Daniel Garber, Edward Redfield, and Walter Schofield, along with works by Albert Bierstadt, Cecilia Beaux, Georgia O'Keeffe, Reginald Marsh, Elizabeth Catlett, and many others. The collection also holds small sculpture by Thomas Eakins, Malvina Hoffman, John Singer Sargent, and Bessie Potter Vonnoh. Thanks to the support of Joann M. Trotsky (class of 1964), who in 2010 established the Trotsky Family Collection, the monumental sculptures "Moravian Roots I-III" by Steve Tobin are installed outdoors on campus.

Payne Gallery offers an active schedule of changing exhibitions. These have featured national and international traveling exhibitions, as well as shows in support of University events and programs. The gallery also hosts an annual Senior Thesis Exhibition and a biennial Faculty Exhibition. Many of these exhibitions feature talks by artists and curators. Shows are organized by guest curators as well as the gallery staff.