The view from the entrance of the A. J. Picture Gallery showing Jennifer Bartlett's “In the Garden” mural, which has been described as the most important piece of contemporary art in the Drexel Founding Collection.

Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery recently underwent a student-curated redesign to better reflect the current student experience. The resulting Drexel [Re]Framed: The Dragon Experience blends undergraduate and graduate perspectives while maintaining ties to institutional history, showcasing student interpretations of art and artifacts from three of the University’s historic collections.

The A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery opened in 1902 to display art donated by the University’s founder, financier and philanthropist Anthony J. Drexel, and generations of his family members. However, those 19^th century landscape paintings and family portraits are not wholly representative of everyone who uses the space, said Lynn Clouser Waddell, executive director of University Collections and Exhibitions. She is also the director of the Drexel Founding Collection, managing the repository of the University’s 10,000-piece art collection (including those works donated by the founder and his family) as well as two other gallery spaces on Drexel’s University City Campus, in addition to the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery.

Though it is an art gallery, the room on the third floor of Main Building is used for a variety of functions. It’s one of the first places on campus that prospective students visit, as Drexel Admissions uses the space for presentations and information sessions during on-campus tours. The A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery also functions as an event space for current students, faculty, professional staff members and other friends of the University.

Drexel [Re]Framed is a continuation of the University’s reimagining of the gallery and what it displays. After its installation this term, it will remain on display for the next two years. In 2022 and 2023, the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery hosted the A New Kind of House exhibition highlighting both the University’s art and the art it inspired from students and West Philadelphia residents involved in Writers Room, a University-community literary arts program.

This wall showcases art from Drexel's collections. Photo credit: Mary Elizabeth Kulesa, BS art history and photography ’22 and MS arts administration and museum leadership ’23, collection specialist in the Drexel Founding Collection.

“We wanted the gallery to represent the current experiences of students at Drexel and particularly in the collections. Now, we’re providing a better picture to prospective and incoming students of what experiential learning looks like at Drexel, and what resources and opportunities are available,” said Waddell. 

She is building on the Founding Collection’s defining principle as a teaching collection — it’s meant to be used by students and classes for hands-on learning and experiential educational opportunities.

The Founding Collection regularly opens its galleries and archives to students and faculty in workshops and classes, including English, design history, history, photography, art history and arts administration courses, to name a few. Students can further connect with the Founding Collection through co-ops, work study, practicums and other academic projects. In recent years, both graduate and undergraduate students have designed academic exhibitions in the Founding Collections’ two other gallery spaces: the Rincliffe Gallery also on the third floor of Main Building and the gallery in the Paul Peck Alumni Center.

Over the last year, about 14 undergraduate and graduate students were involved in the project to update the gallery space; a large majority participated as part of last spring’s arts administration course titled “Exhibitions and Programming.” The students’ disciplines, majors and interests vary, including graduate students from the arts administration & museum leadership program and undergraduate students with photography, graphic design and engineering technology majors.

The industry wall, shown here on the right, contains a mix of art and historical photographs of the University and Philadelphia. Photo credit: Mary Elizabeth Kulesa, BS art history and photography ’22 and MS arts administration and museum leadership ’23, collection specialist in the Drexel Founding Collection.

“Every part of this exhibition was guided by students, who created something new, engaging and relevant to students, staff and faculty alike,” said Waddell.

One of those students was Lauryn Samson, graphic design ’25, who had taken the “Exhibitions and Programming” course and officially started working with the Founding Collection last October after an introduction from her professor, Mark Willie, associate program director and teaching professor in the graphic design program in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.

“One of the most rewarding parts of this experience was seeing how the design choices directly influenced how visitors engaged with the collection,” she said. “I learned a lot about exhibition design, from spatial planning to the importance of typography and hierarchy in a gallery setting. This experience has reinforced my passion for environmental and experiential design.”

In addition to Drexel [Re]Framed, she has also designed some of the Founding Collection’s promotional materials, exhibition graphics, wayfinding signs and other visual assets for the student-curated exhibit Curiouser and Curiouser: Beyond the Glass. For the redesign, she created the gallery’s visual identity — all of the wall labels, typography and interpretive graphics — and assisted with the physical installation. 

Student-written labels describing the intent behind the exhibition. Photo credit: Mary Elizabeth Kulesa, BS art history and photography ’22 and MS arts administration and museum leadership ’23, collection specialist in the Drexel Founding Collection.

“It was exciting to contribute to something that will have a lasting impact on how people experience the collection,” said Samson. 

About three of the four walls contain art focusing on the University’s founding principles, as reflected in its original name: the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry. The remaining wall space is filled with panels explaining the students’ intentions and recognizing all the contributors who participated in the project. All of the walls feature student-written labels about their personal experiences and opinions on the displayed artifacts.

A few 19^th century portraits and European landscapes are still on display, as is the founder’s Steinway piano. Now, they’re accompanied by more modern pieces of art as well as slides of microscopic organisms, student-designed dresses, historical maps and prehistoric fossils (among many other items). The newest and largest piece of art in the space is the “In the Garden” mural from noted artist Jennifer Bartlett; it was moved from Drexel’s URBN Center, where it had been located in a quiet area with little foot traffic, and is the most important piece of contemporary art in the Founding Collection, according to Waddell.

To showcase the “Art, Science and Industry” from Drexel’s founding name, students combed through the Founding Collection and Drexel University Archives to choose art as well as historical maps and photos illustrating Philadelphia’s industrial era. A collaboration with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University brought in the science — literally.

The area showing artifacts from the Academy of Natural Sciences that are hanging on the wall and organized in pull-out cabinets. Photo courtesy of the Drexel Founding Collection.

The Academy of Natural Sciences entered a groundbreaking partnership with Drexel in 2011 that created an entire academic department as well as co-ops, research projects and other collaborative opportunities. To highlight the wealth of offerings from the Academy, students worked with representatives from its departments for malacology and general invertebrates, invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology, environmental research, diatoms, mineralogy, libraries and entomology collections. As a result, printed scans of specimens are hung on the Picture Gallery’s walls, and visitors can look at actual specimens in two pull-out cabinets. The research and co-op experiences of other students who have worked at the Academy were also written about in adjacent labels. 

Professional staff members from Drexel’s Division of Enrollment Management and Division of University Marketing and Communications also collaborated with the students and the Collection for Drexel [Re]Framed. They frequently use the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery to host admissions events and provided valuable feedback during content development and the design process.

“This has been one of the most fulfilling exhibition experiences I’ve had as the director of the Founding Collection, from the students’ first ideas to the finished product,” said Waddell. “This exhibition brought new life to the A.J. Picture Gallery, teaching people about the benefits of a Drexel education and how these fantastic collections are tools for experiential learning.”