Bob Jones University’s Museum & Gallery paintings are no longer available to view on campus, but its art graces museums around the world and close to home.
Currently, the M&G loans pieces from its collection to museums, galleries and other select locations that wish to display the art.
The Museum & Gallery does not charge for these loans but does expect the place being loaned the art to pay for its shipping, packaging and housing.
Museum & Gallery director Erin Jones said the museum regularly receives requests or offers loans to museums, so it is likely that more paintings will soon be moving to even more places across the country.
Jones credits the desirability of the M&G pieces to both the relationships it has built with other museums over the years and the truly remarkable collection it has been providentially blessed with.
Art has been loaned to local museums as well as museums across the United States.
The Greenville County Art Museum exhibited more than 20 paintings and artifacts from the M&G’s collection until its recent closing in February. More paintings were just returned from a museum in New Orleans.
One painting recently made a trip overseas as it returned from a museum in Japan, where it was featured in an exhibition of Western art.
The Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Georgia, currently displays 24 of the M&G’s Russian icons.
The M&G loaned nine other paintings to nearby Wofford College for an exhibition of Baroque art. The J. Paul Getty Museum displays two panel paintings loaned to them by the M&G.
William Timmons, U.S. representative for the South Carolina’s 4th district, has a M&G piece hanging in his Washington, D.C. office.
The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., currently houses an exhibition of objects from the M&G collection. The Museum of the Bible plans to open a larger exhibition of over 60 M&G paintings.
The M&G also placed parts of the collection around the campus of BJU.
The inner lobby of the Gustafson Fine Arts Center houses a small exhibition on Martin Luther. This display includes paintings, pieces of furniture, a book about key figures of the Protestant Reformation and an interactive touchscreen that shows short videos about Luther and the world during his lifetime.
The Mack Library contains a display of antiquities. The display features objects from Hebrew, Roman and Egyptian cultures over 37 centuries of history.
Jones said of this display, “I think it’s important for people to just look at it, and what they’ll usually find is that there is nothing new under the sun. [These civilization’s] interests and needs are not that different from our own.”
The approximately 250 objects featured in this display include Persian scale armor, a Hebrew baby rattle, a 120-foot-long Torah scroll from the 15th century, Egyptian makeup, Roman coins, Roman idols and more.
The Museum & Gallery has even made the displays interactive.
Parents can pick up a scavenger hunt activity paper for their children at the library’s front desk. The scavenger hunt allows children K5 through grade eight to act as archeologists, discovering “clues” in the objects on display.
Other examples of the museum’s art on display around campus include a painting and piece of furniture in the seminary building, and cathedra (ornate chairs designed for church leaders) and a decoratively painted 1612 King James Bible can be found in the Jerusalem Chamber.
Jones said that having objects of fine art and culture such as those mentioned above promotes an interest in the fine arts, which in turn enables greater understanding and empathy toward the current culture and, most crucially, ways to better reach others for Christ.
Tours of the spaces containing Museum & Gallery pieces are offered to visitors. Additional information on M&G pieces can be found on the organization’s webpage, bjumg.org.
