About 40 students showed up at the Rose Art Museum last Wednesday to take advantage of a special opportunity to tour the museum's vault. In groups of 20, students and community members were taken on a guided tour of the Rose's permanent and private collections of paintings. Director of Education Stphanie Molinard led the tour groups into the vault where she gave a brief history of the Rose and its acquisitions.

Before the museum was established on campus, there was an art collection, much of which was exhibited during the 1950's at local museums such as Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum. A $250,000 donation from Mr. and Mrs. Rose led to talk in the 60's of creating an art museum here at Brandeis. The Rose eventually was designed by Max Abramowitz, whose notable works include the Lincoln Center and United Nations building in New York City.

The Rose was designed to be a Modern/Contemporary Art museum devoting itself primarily to works created post-World War II. The Rose's first curator was Sam Hunter, an established art critic and writer. His connections with the modern art world were responsible for some of the museum's most acclaimed acquisitions.

With a $50,000 gift from the Menkin fund, Hunter was able to buy 21 paintings from up-and-coming artists of the era, like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana. Hunter's solid reputation allowed him access to artists' studios where he was able to hand-pick new and cutting edge pieces. These initial big-name acquisitions attracted other donors, which enabled the Rose to purchase works from abstract expressionists like Willem DeKooning and Franz Kline during that movement's creative peak.

Today, the Rose's permanent collection includes 10,000 works, 7,000 of which are currently housed at the museum. An additional thousand works distributed among various departmental offices on campus, and the rest are on loan to students or other museums. The Rose Art Museum collection includes paintings from all reaches of the avant-garde: minimalist, surrealist and abstract. It boasts works by the father of cubsim, Georges Braque, his predecessor, Paul Czanne and a group of younger artists including Marsden Hartley, Roy Lichtenstein and Ren Magritte.

While it is most definitely a shame that most of these works stay locked in the vault, the Rose does try to hold at least one exhibition annually from the permanent collection. Last year brought attendees a fabulous look at the abstract expressionist works in the collection, corresponding with a course taught by visiting professor David Anfam. The next permanent collection exhibition will focus on photo-realism, with Molinard serving as curator.