A Living Legacy: Gifts from Lynn Gross Straus

The collection at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center has been greatly enhanced by gifts from Lynn Gross Straus, Vassar class of 1946, and her husband, Philip. Over the course of more than forty years until his passing in 2004 and hers at the age of ninety-seven in 2023, they donated a wide array of objects spanning five centuries. Among these generous donations were prints by European artists active in the early 1900s, like Erich Heckel, Käthe Kollwitz, and Edvard Munch, as well as later twentieth-century American figures, such as Lee Bontecou, Helen Frankenthaler, and Frank Stella.

These gifts were always intended to be used for teaching and research in order to foster deeper appreciation and understanding of the creative process and artistic imagination. Throughout her life as an ardent patron, donating works of art to Vassar and Harvard University (Philip’s alma mater) and supporting various projects and initiatives, Lynn was a tireless advocate of education for learners of all ages. Many of the nearly fifty works she gave are on view together for the first time.

This exhibition was organized by Bart Thurber, the Anne Hendricks Bass Director, with contributions from John P. Murphy, the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Ruby Funfrock ‘24, and is generously supported through the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund.