Front and south elevations of the Bayly Art Museum, 1933
Front and south elevations of the Bayly Art Museum, 1933 Edmund S. Campbell and R.E. Lee Taylor, architects; D.A.L., draftsman Blueprint, 23 ¾ x 28 ¾ in. University Archives (RG-31/1/2:15.761)

Campbell’s and Taylor’s art museum of 1933 indicated the University’s institutional priority to expose students to arts and culture. Like sports facilities, art museums were a way for universities to assert their prominence. Funded by the Works Progress Administration and gifts by McIntire and Evelyn May Bayly Tiffany, Campbell’s eclectic building gestured toward Jeffersonian architecture. The entrance bay evoked Pavilion IX. The porthole-like windows recalled Monticello’s dome and the Jefferson-designed plantation house in Albemarle County that Campbell was converting into Farmington Country Club. As the art and architecture programs outgrew Fayerweather Hall, they expanded into the art museum until the building returned to its primary function in the early 1970s.