Old College Gallery
Mechanical Hall Mineralogical Museum at Penny Hall
Museums' collections focus on two broad areas: art and minerals.
The Mineralogical Museum is housed in Penny Hall. Each semester the Mineralogical Museum displays approximately 350 specimens from UD’s renowned collection of minerals. Currently, the collection contains approximately 3000 specimens of minerals, meteorites, gems and carvings. Exhibitions highlight fine crystallized minerals; classics from worldwide and American locations, specimens from significant recent discoveries, and themes such as crystallography and crystal growth.
Mechanical Hall and Old College Galleries' particular strengths are in American art of the 20th century (especially prints, photographs, and work by African American artists), as well as European prints, Inuit art, and Pre-Columbian art.
A substantial gift by the Atlanta collector Paul R. Jones has served as a point of departure for a growing African American art collection. The African American art collection includes the founding Paul R. Jones gift, a broad range of prints from the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, important photographs by P.H. Polk, and representative works by Delaware artist Edward L. Loper, Sr.
The museum staff support courses across disciplines. Staff is available to collaborate on a variety of learning experiences that utilize museum collections to help advance your teaching and learning outcomes.
In addition to current exhibitions, museum staff can also pull materials from storage to achieve your teaching goals.
Contact Ashley Rye-Kopec, Curator of Education and Outreach, Museums if you:
Are planning a class visit to the museum spaces either led by museum staff or on your own
Need assistance with incorporating the museums into your curriculum
Want to learn more about what the museums have to offer your students
To browse museum collections, you can view most of the digitized objects using Artstor Digital Library. You can find the guide on how to navigate ArtStor here.