Jacobson Faculty Hall - University of Oklahoma - Norman, Oklahoma - Oklahoma Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Jacobson Faculty Hall

This building is named in honor of Oscar Brousse Jacobson, first director of the School of Art. On July 1, 1917, President Stratton D. Brooks received appropriations for three new buildings on the Norman campus, which included what are now Holmberg, Carpenter, and Jacobson Halls. Occupied for the first time in the 1919-1920 academic year, Jacobson Faculty Hall (known then as the New Library) became the University’s second library building. In 1930, it was remodeled to provide quarters for the School of Art. The building was officially renamed Jacobson Faulty Hall in 1992 to honor the 50th anniversary of the Faculty Senate.

Jacobson was born on May 16, 1882, in Westervik, Sweden. He trained at Bethany College, Kansas and at Yale University, and joined the faculty in 1915. He was appointed in 1924 to be the first director of the School of Painting & Design, which became known as the School of Art in 1930. In 1936, the Board of Regents approved the establishment of the Museum of Art, appointing Jacobson as its director. The museum occupied two rooms in the Art Building and quickly received valuable collections. In 1971, the new Fred Jones Jr. Memorial Fine Arts Center greatly increased the museum’s space.

Under Jacobson’s direction, the art program at the University rapidly gained high rank. Jacobson helped to gain recognition for the legitimacy of native American art by sponsoring and promoting the “Kiowa Five,” a group of southern Plains Indian painters from the Anadarko area who painted in the traditional flat style. He took their works to Europe where they were featured at the Prague Exhibition in the nineteen twenties. He also brought many of the great artists of the period to lecture and exhibit their works on campus.

Jacobson gained much respect from his students and peers for his teaching ability. The noted historian Dr. Roy Gittinger described him as “not only an able teacher of art but an outstanding painter of western landscapes as well.” In 1944, Jacobson was awarded one of the first research professorships at the University. He retired as director of the School of Art on June 1, 1945, leaving behind a legacy of excellence in the fine arts at the University of Oklahoma.

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