Museums & Libraries

This campus museum houses some 1,800 objects and maintains an exhibition schedule featuring art from Old Masters to contemporary works that is designed to introduce the arts to a wide audience. 

Founded in 1939 by Elizabeth Holmes Fisher and accredited by the American Association of Museums, the USC Fisher Museum’s permanent collection includes 19th-century American landscapes; 16th- and 17th-century Northern European paintings; 18th-century British portraiture; and 19th-century French Barbizon paintings, we well as 20th- and 21st-century works on paper, paintings and sculpture.

Further afield in Pasadena, California, this museum is one of few U.S. institutions dedicated to the arts and culture of Asia and the Pacific Islands, with a mission to further intercultural understanding through the arts. 

The museum fulfills its mission by organizing and presenting exhibitions, performances, lectures, classes, workshops, and festivals, all drawing on the arts and cultures of Asia and the Pacific Islands. These programs provide quality arts programming and education to children and families, ensuring greater access to the arts for area residents and nurturing new audiences.

The collection comprises more than 15,000 objects and spans more than 4,000 years, as well as the region extending from Persia to the Pacific Islands. Established in 1971, the museum has presented groundbreaking exhibitions, including the first North American exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art after the Revolution and the first exhibition of Aboriginal art in the U.S.

This library, located on the ground floor of Watt Hall in a modernist setting designed by Becket Associates and Graeme Morland, a faculty member at the School of Architecture, offers more than 75,000 books and journals dedicated to the studies of art history, fine arts, photography and architecture, as well as a notable collection of rare titles and artists’ books. 

In addition, the library has a growing collection of videos and DVDs in the arts and design fields, and several architectural and public-art archival collections. It is part of the USC Libraries system, and adheres to its policies on access and borrowing privileges. 

The Special Collections contains more than 200,000 books, more than 1,000 archival collections, and more than 2 million photographs. The collection is located on campus in the Doheny Memorial Library.

Serving as the access point for the Libraries’ holdings of rare books and manuscripts, and many of the university’s archival collections, its purpose is to collect, preserve, promote and foster access to primary source material in USC areas of strength including Southern California regional history; Lion Feuchtwanger and the European exiles of the 20th century in Southern California; Shoah Foundation video oral histories; American literature; natural history; Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland; and USC history.