Lowe Art Museum

History of the Lowe Art Museum

On February 22, 1950, the University of Miami inaugurated what would later become the Lowe Art Museum in the University’s newly completed Merrick Classroom Building. As the City of Miami’s first professional art exhibition space, the “University Art Gallery” was founded to serve academics, students, and members of the general public throughout the region.

Perez Art Museum PAMM

Just one year later (1951), Miami philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe underwrote the construction of a separate art museum on UM’s still-young campus: the new “Lowe Art Gallery” was formally dedicated on February 4, 1952. By that time, the Lowe had already begun assembling important collections of non-Western art, including significant examples of Asian, Ancient American, and African art. In 1956 Alfred I. Barton donated his extensive collection of Native American art to the Gallery. A 1,300 square foot addition was built that same year to permanently display the Barton Collection, which remains one of the finest such collections in the country. Five years later, the gallery was selected as a regional repository for more than forty works from the Samuel H. Kress Collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art. An addition was built in 1961 to accommodate this gift, increasing the Lowe’s total footprint to 23,100 square-feet of exhibition and administrative space.

Historic image of model of the original museum building

In 1968, the Lowe Art Gallery became the “Lowe Art Museum,” which, in 1972, became the first museum in Miami-Dade County to be professionally accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. In 1985, the museum was recognized by the State of Florida as a major cultural facility and resource, the first museum in Miami-Dade County to be thus honored. The Lowe continued to make important art acquisitions (primarily through gift acceptance) in the intervening years, including works by Washington Allston, Sofinisba Anguissola, Dale Chihuly, Chryssa, Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin, George Inness, Roy Lichtenstein, Claude Monet, Rembrandt Peale, Pablo Picasso, Henry Raeburn, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and Zao Wou-Ki.

President Pearson and dignitaries at the groundbreaking cermony for the original museum

The rapid growth of the museum’s collections necessitated a major expansion in 1991; the first in 34 years. Miami architect Charles Harrison Pawley was selected for this $3.6 million project, which, once completed in 1996, added 13,000 square feet of temporary and permanent exhibition gallery space to the museum. The project also addressed the need for new HVAC, security, and fire protection systems and created a unifying facade for the building.

The most recent addition to the Lowe, the Myrna and Sheldon Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Glass and Studio Arts, opened in 2008 and was fully reinstalled in February 2018. The Lowe’s comprehensive collection now comprises nearly 19,500 objects, which collectively represent more than 5,000 years of human creativity on every inhabited continent.

About the Museum

From its origins in three classrooms in 1950, the history of the Lowe Art Museum reflects an unswerving commitment to fulfill its mission to serve the University of Miami as a teaching resource, and the residents of, and visitors to, greater Miami as its major general art museum.

Mission Statement

An integral part of the University of Miami, the Lowe Art Museum offers its diverse audiences opportunities and resources for engaging with contemporary culture through 5,000 years of human creativity.

Vision

The University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum touches lives and builds communities by serving as a laboratory for learning, a place for engagement and enrichment, and a site for self-discovery.

Values

The University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum celebrates the power of art to elevate the human spirit, immortalize lives, and transcend time and place. As such, we:

• Support the Mission and Vision of the University of Miami.
• Collect and exhibit exemplary works of art and culture.
• Steward the objects entrusted to our care for the benefit of successive generations.
• Use our resources to inspire a plurality of audiences.
• Foster a sense of community both on and off campus.
• Explore and validate diversity.
• Bridge cultural divides.
• Promote civil and civic discourse.
• Secure long-term sustainability.
• Manage resources prudently.

Hours

The Lowe is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. The museum is currently closed Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and University Holidays.

The museum is closed on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

Please Note: Exhibition and collection galleries close approximately 15 minutes prior to the museum closing.

Location, Directions, and Parking

The Lowe Art Museum is located at 1301 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124, approximately 5 miles south of Miami, directly off US1 (South Dixie Highway), on the University of Miami campus.

     Get Directions to the Lowe  ►  

Getting to the Museum

• From the North: Take I–95 south to US1 (South Dixie Highway). Take a right on Stanford Drive and proceed directly into the University of Miami campus. The Lowe is located on the right hand side of Stanford Drive just past the guard house.
• From the South: Take US1 (South Dixie Highway) north to Stanford Drive. Take a left on Stanford Drive and proceed directly into the University of Miami campus.
• By Public Transit (Metrorail): Proceed to University station. From there, you may take the free University of Miami shuttle bus directly to the Lowe Art Museum, or walk ~.04 miles (about 8 minutes). Head northeast on Ponce de Leon Blvd toward George E Merrick St. Turn left onto Stanford Drive.

Parking

Pavia Garage is your most guaranteed place for available parking. To get there:

• Take Stanford Drive past the University of Miami Gatehouse and make your second left.
• Drive to the end of the street to enter the Garage.
• A parking attendant will direct you to paid parking and how to walk to the museum a short distance away.

Parking Cost

• PayByPhone is $1.50/hourly, plus .27 cents transaction fee. Parking sessions of 5-hours or more converts to all day parking at $8 plus .27 cents transaction fee. On-foot pay stationis $1.50/hourly; no transaction fee.
• The University’s parking enforcement hours will be 7-days a week, 8:00a.m. to 11:00p.m.
• These locations use PayByPhone for payment, and on-foot pay stations are available.

Visitor’s metered spaces are also located at Pavia and Merrick Garages, Stanford Drive, the Yellow, Gray and Burgundy color parking zones.

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