No. 10: The Fogg’s Student Rental Program: $25 Puts Warhol On Your Wall

Harvard students may be forced into cramped rooms in awful-smelling dorms, but they can hang artwork by Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns on their walls. The Student Rental Program at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum allows students to rent highly valued artwork each fall for only $25, $45, or—at the very most—$55.

During the first week of classes every September, hundreds of Harvard students flock to the Fogg Museum in hopes of choosing from the best selection of prints. According to Susan Dackerman, Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, the program offers artwork by young, emerging artists as well as works by famous artists like Joan Miro and Robert Rauschenberg.

In order to get the best prints, however, you must be fast, warns Luke M. Appling ’06, who has rented twice from the Fogg. Appling arrived at the museum at noon on the first day of rentals in September and was shocked at how limited the selection had already become after only three or four hours.

“On the day that is opens there are 100 students waiting outside the door of the museum and there is a big rush to grab the perennial favorites,” says Dackerman.

Is it an actual desire for fine art or simply a hunger for bragging rights that drives us to the Fogg? The answer is both. According to Appling, “Many people line up to get the really big names.” Alexandra T. Pape ’08, on the other hand, rented a large photograph of a decomposing car to put over her fireplace freshman year because she felt it matched her room.

“The purpose of the program is to get students used to living with original works of art so it may whet their own appetite for collecting when they realize how affordable prints actually are,” Dackerman says.

The only problem is, when the year ends, you have to give them back.