The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art’s permanent collection encompasses over sixteen thousand artworks. Our inaugural exhibition, Homecoming, reintroduces our extraordinary collection to the public.

Homecoming comprises a series of related installations. “Generations," curated by Diana Tuite, Visiting Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, foregrounds the University of Iowa’s history of innovative arts education and scholarship.  "Fragments of the Canon: African Art from the Saunders and Stanley Collections," curated by Cory Gundlach, Curator of African Art, features African art collected by a Black Iowan, Meredith Saunders. “History Is Always Now,” also curated by Gundlach, displays the Stanley’s celebrated collection of African art in a way that emphasizes movement and cultural exchange through time and across space. Smaller, more focused installations, curated by Gundlach, include "Centering on Cloth: The Art of African Textiles," which highlights the global scope of interactions that surround the creation, use, and circulation of cloth in Africa, and "About Face: African Masks in Iowa," which emphasizes the historical and artistic relationships between West and Central African masks from the world-renowned Stanley Collection of African Art. 

Developed collaboratively by curators, educators, and faculty under the museum director’s guidance, Homecoming illustrates the importance of our world-class collection and allows us to envision new futures in art.

In order to protect sensitive works of art from extended exposure to light, many of the works on display in Homecoming will rotate every six months--meaning that there will always be something new to see during the inaugural exhibition's three-year run.

Visit the links below to learn more about the curatorial choices and themes behind each installation, and to browse images that document the exhibition's rotations. 

Homecoming is supported by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation with additional support from the Richard V.M. Corton, M.D., and Janet Y. Corton Exhibition Fund, the Members Special Exhibition Fund, the John S. and Patricia C. Koza Art Exhibition Fund, the Stanley Building Fund, and the Gerald Eskin Ceramics Art Initiative.

The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative scholarship, cultivating new leaders, and fostering international understanding. Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the Luce Foundation advances its mission through grantmaking and leadership programs in the fields of Asia, higher education, religion and theology, art, and public policy.

A leader in art funding since 1982, the Luce Foundation's American Art Program supports innovative museum projects nationwide that advance the role of visual arts of the United States in an open and equitable society, and the potential of museums to serve as forums for art-centered conversations that celebrate creativity, explore difference, and seek common ground. The Foundation aims to empower museums and arts organizations to reconsider accepted histories, foreground the voices and experiences of underrepresented artists and cultures, and welcome diverse collaborators and communities into dialogue.