Fairfield University Art Museum
The Fairfield University Art Museum, formerly the Bellarmine Museum of Art, sits on the Fairfield University campus in Fairfield, Connecticut. Opened in October 2010, it is housed on the renovated lower level of Bellarmine Hall. The museum has three galleries totaling about 2,700 square feet, plus the Walsh Gallery in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Performing Arts with about 1,800 square feet. The Frank and Clara Meditz Gallery, the museum’s main space, is named for the parents of the lead donor.
The collections cover a wide range of art and artifacts, including Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Celtic, and Asian works. The entrance hall features highlights from the university’s plaster-cast collection, including recent additions from the Acropolis Museum in Athens. In addition to Western art, the museums’ spaces hold non-Western objects and works loaned from major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. The Walsh Gallery focuses on modern and contemporary art.
Special exhibitions are held two to three times a year in both galleries. Past highlights include works by Hildreth Meière, pieces from the Horvitz Collection, Plains Indian ledger drawings, Adolf Dehn, and the major international loan show “The Holy Name – Art of the Gesu: Bernini and his Age,” which featured a Bernini bust never before exhibited outside Rome.
The museum received full accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums in 2024, reflecting its commitment to professional standards.
Key notes on the building and history: Bellarmine Hall, built in 1921 in an English manor style, was a long-standing residence before the Jesuits purchased it in 1942 to support Fairfield University. The museum’s leadership began with Jill Deupi (founding director and chief curator, 2010–2014), followed by Carey Mack Weber as interim director, then Linda Wolk-Simon, with Weber returning as executive director in 2019.
A landmark 2017 gift expanded the collection: more than 1,200 James Reed Prints, including works by Géricault, Delacroix, Daumier, Manet, Redon, Denis, and Fantin-Latour, plus Old Master engravings and etchings, Northern European prints, German Expressionist works, and contemporary prints by artists such as Albers, Dine, Haas, Johns, and Oldenburg. The collection also features prints by Connecticut artists, many produced at Reed’s Milestone Graphics studio.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:53 (CET).