Artist Carol Cole Levin has donated over 270 artworks by more than 140 artists — including herself — to the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Greensboro, according to an October 23 announcement from the school. Totaling nearly $5 million, the donation will not only expand the museum’s collection but also fund building renovations that will transform its first-floor wing into the Cole Levin Center for Art and Human Understanding.
Jointly named in tribute to the artist’s late husband Seymour Levin, who passed away in August, the new cultural center will focus on the humanist inquiry at the core of Cole’s own art practice and collecting habits.
Originally from Mississippi and a Greensboro resident since the ’80s, Cole has long created work that grapples with contemporary feminist issues and struggles. From early drawings like her Bubble Blower series (1976–77) to more recent mixed media works such as “Target with Nipples (after Jasper Johns)” (2010) and “Extraverted Nipple with Curls (for Ruby Lerner) and Breast Books” (2016), her five-decade oeuvre has frequently centered around the motif of a single breast as both a figurative subject and abstract object, echoing the work of feminist mentors whose art she has collected.
“Many works in my collection are by the artists who gave me confidence and helped me learn this in the 1970s — from Lynda Benglis who told me I had talent; to Nancy Grossman, whose sculptures made me think about claiming my voice; to a workshop with Judy Chicago, that instructed me to draw myself as the world saw me, as I saw myself, and as I wanted to be seen,” Cole told Hyperallergic.
The Weatherspoon Art Museum Director Juliette Bianco told Hyperallergic that the gift will allow the institution to not only host a greater diversity of creatives and scholars, but also to expand the capacity of its programming by presenting exhibitions “that respond in real time (rather than exhibition calendar time) to campus and community interests.”
Some highlights among the donated pieces include early art by Willie Cole, David Huffman, Pepón Osorio, Joyce J. Scott, Saya Woolfalk, and Gil Yefman, as well as literary and historical objects connected to Southern culture such as works by Walter Anderson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams that are connected to Southern history and culture. This coming spring, students at UNC Greensboro will curate an exhibition centering on the works in Cole’s gift in celebration of the new arts wing, slated to open in 2026.
“The works in my collection speak to human vulnerability, which is something we all have in common,” Cole said. “When we look inward and see it, we can become both stronger for understanding ourselves and more empathetic in how we treat others.”
Isa Farfan contributed reporting to this story.
