Inspire. Innovate. Include.

Daura Museum of Art

The Daura Museum is a teaching museum at the University of Lynchburg that transforms learning through engagement with art and culture.

Friends of Daura

Art Transforms Education

It was established in 1974, and in 1990 dedicated to Catalan-American painter Pierre Daura (1896-1976) and his wife, Louise Blair Daura (1905-1972). In 2020, the University’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved renaming it the Daura Museum of Art.

The Daura Museum at the University of Lynchburg is committed to fostering a deeper understanding of visual arts across different cultures and time periods, highlighting its role in cultivating culturally aware global citizens.

The museum enhances the university’s academic mission across all disciplines by integrating innovative and compelling programs and exhibitions. These offerings encourage critical questioning, effective reasoning, clear communication, creative action, and ethical living.

Actively seeking collaborative opportunities both on and off campus, the museum centralizes its role in educational enhancement and audience development. It also positions itself as a transformative space for reflection, enjoyment, and dialogue, leveraging the power of art to influence and inspire.

Person looks at camera in a gallery at the Daura Museum.

The Daura Museum of Art's Goals and Mission

The Mission

The Daura Museum of Art is a teaching museum that enhances the University of Lynchburg’s academic mission, transforms learning through encounters with works of art, advances creative collaboration with all fields of study, and furthers the appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts and cultural heritage for all University of Lynchburg constituents.

Guiding Principles

The Daura Museum believes that appreciating the visual arts across time and cultures is one of the most effective ways to become culturally aware global citizens and to build a better world.
The Daura Museum enhances the academic mission of the University of Lynchburg across all disciplines by offering opportunities to challenge assumptions, question critically, reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically.
The Daura Museum models inclusion through stimulating, innovative, compelling programs and exhibitions that enhance the academic curriculum.
The Daura Museum is committed to ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion are apparent through a climate where all students, faculty, and staff feel welcomed and are treated equitably and with respect.
The Daura Museum is a learning lab where innovation occurs at the intersection of disciplines.
The Daura Museum fosters the transformative power of art by being a place of reflection, enjoyment, and dialogue.
The Daura Museum finds collaborative opportunities on and off campus that make it central to learning and the development of diverse audiences.

Statement of Diversity and Inclusion

Academic museums and galleries across the U.S. are dedicated to teaching our many audiences about global heritage — past and present, individual and collective — not only to enhance educational and enrichment opportunities in the communities we serve but also to foster mutual respect and understanding well beyond the borders of our localities. In furtherance of this commitment, we regularly welcome curators, faculty, students, and collectors from around the world who support our mission and share their creative practices and experiences with us.

Association of Academic Museums & Galleries, February 2017