Current Exhibitions

Blank Canvas: 1920s FashionOn View

Blank Canvas: 1920s Fashion explores how the chemise silhouette offered limitless creative possibilities for conveying the 1920s zeitgeist. It emerged as armor for the new modern woman, providing a platform to communicate their identity and ideals.  

The exhibition showcases more than 60 garments from the 1920s drawn from the Fashion and Textile Collection in the Fashion and Apparel Studies Department, along with digital twins, virtual reproductions of selected fragile garments. 

Highlights from the MuseumsOn View

From fall 2025 through fall 2026, the Main Gallery of Old College will showcase a unique installation of the UD Library, Museums and Press’ mineral and art collections. This presentation highlights the beauty of natural materials alongside the creativity of sculptural form, inviting visitors to explore the dialogue between art and nature.

Photo / ObjectOn View

Since the invention of photography around 1839, it has become ubiquitous in our daily lives thanks to the availability of powerful instant cameras in our pockets. Photographs may literally be “written with light,” capturing a moment and place in an instant flash. Yet, they are also so much more: they are intricate material objects entangled in systems of extraction, motion and collection.

Photo / Object gathers a wide range of processes and formats from repositories across the University of Delaware’s campus. These photographs take up space and invite us to remember that they are real objects made from physical materials, enabling us to revisit our relationship with this artistic medium.

QuartzOn View

Quartz is the second most common mineral in the earth’s crust. It comprises the majority of sand beaches in the world due to its abundance, hardness and resistance to erosion. It also forms crystals which can be very large. Although often transparent or white, other color varieties include amethyst (purple), citrine (yellow-orange) and gray or black (smoky). This exhibition includes recent acquisitions, an important specimen from Pennsylvania, early DuPont collection examples, and a “mystery” crystal given by Quaesita Drake, a chemistry professor, for whom Drake Hall is named. 

The Vibrant World of Lead MineralsOn View

Lead may be best known for its dull, gray appearance, but in the mineral world, it reveals a far more dazzling side. The Vibrant World of Lead Minerals invites you to explore the unexpected beauty of lead-based minerals—brilliant, colorful and captivating specimens that defy the element’s ordinary reputation. 

This exhibition showcases an array of stunning lead minerals from around the globe, including specimens from Australia, Namibia, Morocco and the United States.

Join us this fall at the Mineralogical Museum in Penny Hall for a dazzling journey through the hidden brilliance of lead minerals!

Lifting As We Climb: Churches, Schools and the Formation of Delaware's Free Black Communities On View

Organized in celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence, Lifting As We Climb draws from the University of Delaware’s Special Collections to chronicle the resilience of Black communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Against a backdrop of limited rights and opportunities for Black Americans, this exhibition examines how churches and schools fueled the formation and development of Delaware’s free Black communities in the years leading up to and following the American Civil War.