The Collection
With a growing collection of nearly 11,000 objects representing a variety of cultures and spanning centuries of art, the Palmer Museum collection is the largest between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and is the leading cultural resource of the region.Explore the Collection
American
American paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the colonial period to 1980View collection.
African
Ceremonial, ritual, and utilitarian objects representing diverse cultures throughout the continent of AfricaView collection.
Ancient Americas
Objects from Andean and other Indigenous American cultures dating from before European contactView collection.
Asian
Ceramics, sculpture, and works on paper from China, Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asia from the 3rd century BCE to the 20th century CEView collection.
Contemporary
Paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper created since 1980View collection.
European
Paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the Renaissance to the 20th centuryView collection.
Studio Ceramics
20th- and 21st-century ceramics from England, Denmark, Japan, and the United StatesView collection.
Studio Glass
Late 20th- and 21st-century art glass from the United States, Europe, Australia, and AsiaView collection.
Collections Database
More than 7,000 objects from the Palmer’s permanent collection are searchable via the Penn State Library database.
Find images, information, and descriptions for many objects in the Palmer Museum’s digital collections database here.
Rights and Reproductions
Photography and Image Requests
Reproductions of works in Penn State’s Palmer Museum of Art collections may be purchased for scholarly, commercial, or personal uses.
- Scholarly Use – Includes, but is not limited to publications by libraries, museums, and non-profit organizations, public-television broadcasts, and other items made available to a relatively limited audience.
- Commercial Use – Includes, but is not limited to, for-profit publications such as books, motion pictures, commercial television, large-circulation or mass-market magazines, advertisements, calendars, posters, museum reproductions, postcards, note cards, or other items made available for sale to a relatively wide audience.
- Personal Use – Includes, but is not limited to, study, educational, or research purposes only and may not be published or reproduced.
Requesting an Image
- If you require a high-quality TIFF file for publication of a work of art in the collection, please contact the registrar at bxb35@psu.edu.
- If you wish to purchase a reproduction for home display, The Palmer Museum uses Rudinec & Associates to offer archival reproductions of art from the collection. Click here to visit their website for more information.
Copyright
Please note that, in many cases, Penn State’s Palmer Museum of Art owns only the physical object and does not assume responsibility for intellectual property, including copyright, or any other legal issues involved in the publication and reproduction of items in its collection. The copyright for objects in the museum’s collection is often retained by the artist or the artist’s estate. The responsibility for determining whether a particular work is under copyright and identifying and securing permission from all copyright holders rests with the applicant. The Palmer Museum of Art and Penn State assume no responsibility for any royalties or fees claimed by the artist, or on his or her behalf, or by any other copyright holder.