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Dorm Room Masterpieces: Museum Loans Art to College Students

by frankie felegy

Three people holding framed artworks
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
Students in on-campus housing at the University of Chicago are invited to borrow art from the institution’s Smart Museum of Art during a one-day event each fall. They take home (to their dorms) original works by renowned artists.

Art isn’t always meant for white gallery walls behind rope. Sometimes, it lives amid loft beds and term papers—if even just for a moment.

“Everybody wants to say I had a Picasso in my room,” says Smart Museum of Art’s Lauren Payne. “That and the [Takashi] Murakami.” 

Or maybe a Joan Miró work, or a Derrick Adams collage. 

That’s all possible at the Smart Museum of Art and University of Chicago’s Art to Live With program.  

Exclusively for UChicago on-campus housing residents, students can borrow original artworks for their dorm rooms—for free—all school year long. 

Established in the 1950s, it’s run in part by Payne, the museum’s Collections and Art in Public Spaces project manager. The museum’s growing collection is 400 pieces strong and loans out around 140 each fall at its one-day event. The pieces are rotated for restoration and novelty. 

People waiting in line in an outdoor courtyard
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
“Ninety percent of them are not art history majors or in the arts at all and are having this new relationship with art and the museum,” says Lauren Payne of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.
A group of people sitting around a round table. Some have blankets wrapped around them.
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
Museum staff says they often find students lined up and waiting outside early in the morning before the Art to Live With event begins.
Two people peering through glass windows to look at artworks hanging inside on movable walls
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
The Art to Live With event at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art has become a popular event, with scavenger hunts and live music for students waiting to get their go at picking an artwork for their dorm.
A person with short brown hair smiling and holding a framed artwork depicting colorful flower-like figures with faces
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
A student with their loaned Takashi Murakami artwork at the 2025 Art to Live With event at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art.
People with framed artworks standing by a table as another fills out paperwork
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
Works are loaned to students through the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art at no cost for the duration of the academic year.
A person waiting as another person wraps up a framed artwork for them
Photo Credit: Jason Smith / Courtesy of University of Chicago
Nearly 140 artworks are available for loan in Art to Live With program.

“And the students will kind of hang out in our courtyard, some camp overnight,” Payne says. “Now, we technically can’t have camping anymore, but when we show up in the morning, they’re here. They’re lined up. It’s first come, first served.” 

All the available artwork is displayed for students to view, select, and bring home until the spring. All of the pieces are 2D, with a select few large works requiring extra help to hang. 

It’s become such a popular event that the museum loans out every piece, every year. Day of, in the courtyard, there are student DJs and scavenger hunts. It encourages community building around art, whether you’re an art student or not. 

“Ninety percent of them are not art history majors or in the arts at all and are having this new relationship with art and the museum,” Payne says. “It changes the way you might look at something. There’s so much demand and to have them have the opportunity to have something to reflect on in their space is kind of awesome.” 

A young woman with medium skin tone poses with hands on her hips in a dorm room next to art.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Isha Mehta
University of Chicago student Isha Mehta in her dorm next to “Tiger Girl” by Mel Ramos (1964).

The art ranges from the greats to renowned Chicagoans. Students help suggest new artworks and artists for the loan program. Pieces are gifted to the university with the understanding that their new, temporary homes aren’t traditional, climate-controlled gallery walls.  

“There might be a life cycle to this artwork. And that’s okay. It’s more for the students to have this experience,” Payne says. 

She says residents curate art throughout the dorms together; ask someone where a specific artwork lives, and they’ll likely know. Because art is made to live—and study, and sleep, and make Keurig coffee—with.