Academic Initiatives & Collection Research

Our department supports all aspects of academic engagement between the Nasher Museum of Art and Duke University. We facilitate scholarly research on our collection and partner with university instructors to design specialized lesson plans and assignments that fulfill course objectives through engagement with the Nasher. In class visits lead or co-lead by Academic Initiatives staff upon request, students at all levels have access to a custom curated selection of works from our permanent collection galleries and study storage, as well as exhibitions on view.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University serves as an interdisciplinary nexus and laboratory where students and scholars can investigate, explore and test knowledge. Confronted with a less familiar type of source material — objects and imagery rather than text — visitors are challenged to engage with concepts and issues in new ways.

Visual literacy is an increasingly important skill and an essential part of a 21st-century education. By providing the necessary tools and opportunities to critically evaluate visual culture, we empower students and scholars to determine their own answers.

Only a small portion of the museum’s permanent collection is on view at any one time. We invite you to browse the collection online to learn more about individual objects, whether currently on view or in storage.

The Nasher Museum’s Study Storage offers faculty and students up-close experience with works of art not currently on view in the exhibition pavilions. Facilities include works on paper with more than 3,000 prints and drawings; painting storage with works from the Renaissance to the present; and object storage with Greek and Roman pottery and glass, Ancient American ceramics and African and European Medieval and Renaissance sculpture and artifacts. Study Storage is a gift of Christine and Pierre Lamond and Alice Martin Whelihan.

A wide range of departments have visited Study Storage, including Art, Art History and Visual Studies; Dance; Duke Divinity School; Engineering; Foreign Languages; Kenan Institute for Ethics; Philosophy; and Theater Studies.

We invite faculty, researchers, and students to visit during regular museum hours. Registration is required for all groups visiting the museum, including self-guided tours.

To make a reservation, please fill out the museum visit request form. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how the Nasher can support your teaching, please email Ellen C. Raimond, Ph.D., Associate Curator of Academic Initiatives, at ellen.raimond@duke.edu.

To discuss the possibilities for your classes or research, please contact:

Julia K. McHugh, Ph.D., Trent A. Carmichael Curator of Academic Initiatives, at julia.mchugh@duke.edu or 919 684 5203, or

Ellen C. Raimond, Ph.D., Associate Curator of Academic Initiatives, at ellen.raimond@duke.edu or 919 684 8067.

To obtain high-resolution images of works from our collection for your teaching or access to objects files for your research, please visit our image request page.

Please feel free to record your visit or take pictures, without flash and for personal, non-commercial use only. Share with us on Instagram @NasherMuseum.

To keep our visitors and collections safe, the Nasher Museum prohibits the use of tripods, monopods, selfie sticks, and drones in our museum and sculpture garden.

We appreciate your consideration of other Nasher Museum visitors by taking photographs/videos in an unobtrusive manner.

Visit our online collection to find and save images of some of the works of art you may have seen during your visit. A portion of the collection is also on Google Arts & Culture, zoom in close to view important works in our collection.

If you have any questions about our photography policy or the reproduction of your images, please contact us at nasherimages@duke.edu

If you would like to request permission to take photo shoots, press or commercial photographs or videography sessions in the museum, please contact us at nasher.museum@duke.edu

The Nasher Museum may photograph visitors and program participants on occasion for Duke-related promotional purposes. By entering the Nasher Museum, visitors are granting their permission to be included in such photographs.