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About

We make space for our communities to discover and engage through the arts.

Begun in 1981, the Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture is a professionally managed university gallery, funded jointly by the School of Art and the College of Architecture and Design. We are an on-campus space for the campus and community to connect with art. The gallery fosters artistic curiosity and supports inquiry by creating diverse cultural experiences to serve the university and our communities. Our programming represents current attitudes in art and architecture, supports the curricula of the School of Art, The College of Architecture and Design, and campus constituents, and serves as a cultural resource for Knoxville and East Tennessee. The gallery’s permanent collection holds over 5000 objects for study with focuses on contemporary printmaking and works by Knoxville-born Joseph Delaney. The Samuel A. Yates collection study room and program was established in 2021 to provide students opportunities for more in-depth access to works held in the permanent collection as part of their classroom and studio experience.

We recognize that our campus location makes us an accessible and unique resource for the university community. Our primary audiences are students and faculty within the Art + Architecture building, and our campus-wide colleagues. When curating our professional exhibitions, we uphold the institutional goals of the University of Tennessee, and consider how our selections resonate with our primary audiences. Our exhibitions strive to be trans-disciplinary, experimental, and present art not readily available elsewhere in East Tennessee.


GUIDING PRINCIPLES

  • ACCESS | We value all facets of accessibility. Extending the concept beyond physical accessibility, we strive to be culturally, intellectually, and educationally accessible for our audiences.
  • CARE | As stewards, we not only protect our physical collections but also care for the well-being of our staff, the educational experiences of our students, the connections with our communities, and the artwork and narratives entrusted to us by our exhibiting artists.
  • CAPACITY | We acknowledge our capacity and recognize that declining certain opportunities is essential to being good caretakers of our resources. This enables us to focus on delivering exceptional service and programming.
  • COMMUNITY | We appreciate the diverse communities that contribute to the cultural landscape of Knoxville. We purposefully reach out to and build partnerships with these communities in an effort to foster a welcoming environment and encourage access and engagement. Our active collaboration with these groups is crucial for sustaining an impactful art program.
  • EXPERIMENTATION | We believe experimentation is vital to research and educational growth. We encourage a culture of creative exploration for student and professional artists, and embrace the lessons inherent in failure, understanding that this is an indispensable part of the experimental process.

A headshot photo in the Art + Architecture building
A woman standing behind wooden wall framing
A man painting by a window

Julie Lohnes
Director, Curator
Galleries and Collections
Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture
UT Downtown Gallery
Phone: 865-974-3199
email: jlohnes1@utk.edu

Sarah McFalls
Assistant Director
Galleries + Collections
Phone: 865-974-3200
email: smcfalls@utk.edu

Eric Cagley
Preparator
Exhibition Coordinator

Phone: 865-974-3200
email: ecagley@utk.edu

For general inquiries, please email ewing@utk.edu