Stanley Museum of Art

The University of Iowa’s art program was among the best of the small pack. Grant Wood had served on the faculty from 1934 to 1942. Arguing that students should learn from the best art of their own time, Lester Longman, director of the UI Art Department during these years, acquired some of the twentieth century’s most innovative works, including Joan Miró’s A Drop of Dew Falling from the Wing of a Bird Awakens Rosalie Asleep in the Shade of a Cobweb and Max Beckmann’s Karneval. In 1951, when Jackson Pollock’s 1943 masterpiece Mural—donated to the university by dealer and art impresario Peggy Guggenheim—arrived at the university, the painting cemented the school’s reputation as one of the most progressive art institutions in the country.