May 7, 1915

The Founder’s Day program included the opening and presentation of the Taylor Art Building and Gateway, Allen & Collens, architects. Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Pratt gave the building in honor of James Monroe Taylor, president from1886 until 1914. The new building provided new quarters for the art gallery and the art department, lecture and reception facilities and a new gateway into the college grounds.

Previewing the complex in April, The New York Times noted that James Renwick’s “little old brick lodge through which thousands of students have entered” was torn down to make way for the new gateway. “The next logical step,” the newspaper suggested, “will be to take down the red brick main hall…and put in its place something to correspond with the new lodge. Nor would the destruction of the old main hall call forth much regret.”

Mr. Pratt, a trustee and a close associate of President Taylor, previously funded the construction of Sunset Lake and the Warden’s House. In 1915, he paid for the development of the Out-of-Door Theatre, and in 1917 he presented a collection of Italian paintings selected by the Swedish art historian and biographer of Leonard DaVinci, Oswald Siren.