Snite Museum of Art

A solid museum with hight quality art. They have all types of art pieces that range from kinetic energy sculptures to abstract art! It’s FREE!!!

I attended a recent presentation of the Saturday Scholar Series from the College of Arts & Letters, held at the Snite Museum & found both to be delightful. In its own right, the museum presents an interesting & eclectic collection & serves as an ideal venue for a rich variety of campus program, which in this case was a preview & discussion of a Notre Dame produced documentary on the Easter Rising in Ireland, in 1916. The feature documentary will air in 3 parts on PBS in the spring of 2016 & will be narrated by Liam Neeson & will be accompanied by a book & soundtrack release, so it’s hardly small-​time stuff being produced here.
If you’re planning a visit to the campus, especially during a gameday weekend, see what’s happening here at the Snite Museum — there might well be something of interest! It’s also in very close proximity to the stadium itself, so you can linger a bit without having to rush too much to get to a game.

The Snite is across the street from Notre Dame Stadium. You probably wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t just told you, but I think it says a lot about Notre Dame that one of its best kept secrets is about fifteen yards from the second most iconic building on campus and one of the five more recognizable college football stadia in the country.
I know how things work – or how they used to work: You had available space, so you used that space. You didn’t think about master plans or trying to raise $ 100 million in three years or keeping everything together in pods or nodes or some other garbage word that your business school decided to adopt because of best practices, whatever those are. No, you did what any sane person would do; you made space for things where you had space for things. If this meant that people found it difficult to get into the Snite during football Saturdays, so what? I agree with this way of thinking.
Because in college, I think exposing people to unfamiliar and unknown things, places, and ideas is much better than allowing them to believe that they control their lives. They do control their lives, I guess, but I’m also Catholic, so I know that even the idea of control is a complete lie we tell ourselves. Every day. And I know why we have to; there’s nothing wrong with it, until there is. It’s like alcohol. Or pink mustaches.
This is getting over even my head, so I’ll use a different word: juxtaposition. The Snite is perfectly juxtaposed.
Oh, the museum, right. It’s small. It’s crammed full o stuff. There’s more in storage than there is on display. I know this because a particular gallerina or curatress (who’s now pregnant, by the way) let me in on the down low. And I saw a cross they lent in the ‘90s to a museum in Los Angeles – in Los Angeles! How crazy is that? So my first impression of the Snite came a few hundred yards from the L.A. Memorial Coliseum – now, if you know anything about college football, you’ll know exactly how ridiculous and perfect that is.
One more story: My mom, dad, and I got locked outside in the Snite’s sculpture garden. We had to make a fuss for the security cameras so they would come let us back in so that we could get back out. Make some sense? That’s what I thought.
If you visit Notre Dame for any reason, be sure to visit the Snite. It won’t hurt you. It won’t necessarily make you any smarter, either, but it could. Just try, OK?

This is an additional update. I returned today and enjoyed its nice variety of American paintings from the Colonial Period (Gilbert Stuart paintings) up to the late 20^th Century (paintings by Phillip Pearlstein, Bernard Williams, and Milton Avery).Personal American favorites were, John Kensett. s“Newport Beach”, Victor Higgins’s“Taos Valley”, Maurice Prendergast’s“Sunlit Cove”, Milton Avery’s“China Christ”, Phillip Pearlstein’s“2 Nudes”, and Bernard Williams’”Black Indian, Buffalo Soldiers”.I also appreciated its fine collection of Nigerian Art from the Dagon and Yoruba peoples of that country. The Snite Art Museum’s collection of ancient Olmec artifacts was also splendid and enriching. There were also some fine ancient artifacts from South American civilizations like;the Chavins in Peru, Moches in Peru, Sunis in Colombia, and Diaquitas in Chile and Argentina. I also appreciated the helpfulness of this art museum’s staff.

A great getaway on campus that makes you feel like you’ve left campus.