Charlottesville, Virginia

Art, Culture, University

The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia came into being in 1997 through a gift by American businessman, John W. Kluge. Influenced by the Dreamings exhibition in New York, Mr. Kluge began collecting Aboriginal art in 1988. Over the next decade he compiled one of the finest private collections of Australian Aboriginal art in the world. In 1993, Kluge purchased the collection and archives of the late Professor Edward L. Ruhe of Lawrence, Kansas. Ruhe began collecting Aboriginal art while visiting Australia as a Fulbright Scholar in 1965. He built a collection of the highest quality rivaling many museum collections in Australia and exhibited it widely in the United States between 1965 and 1977.