Student Lending Art Program

Two people attend the MIT List Arts Center SLAP Reception 2019.

The Student Lending Art Program is a unique and popular MIT tradition that allows MIT students to borrow original works of art from the MIT List Visual Arts Center.

The fully digitized collection includes more than 700 framed original works of art, primarily prints and photographs by leading contemporary artists, which are made available to students each September to live with for the school year. 

Students live with and care for a work from the collection. Participating students proudly hang artwork borrowed from the collection in their private rooms and communal spaces.  

Explore Collection

View Exhibition

Support

The List Center actively collects new works each year with leadership support provided by the Alan M. May Fund and the John Taylor Endowment.

Support for the program is provided by the Office of Graduate Education, Vera G. List, MIT’s Campus Activities Complex, MIT List Friends of Boston Art, Stanhope Framers, and the Council for the Arts at MIT.

In 2018–2019 the List Center received gifts of art from Cynthia and Michael Weisfield, Olga and John Guttag, Carlos de la Torre, Audrey and James Foster, David C. Schmittlein, and Souren Ouzounian.

Additional funds for acquisitions were provided by Karen & Gregory Arenson, Rhea Cohen, Leila Kinney, Joan L. Lewis, Bethany & Robert Millard, Sara Ann & Robert Sanders, Idee German Schoenheimer, Pepi Weiss, and the Friends of Boston Art.

Student Stories

“Once I read the message, “The way things fall together,” it really spoke volumes to me. I'd say I'm quite an optimistic person but I think, like everyone, you have moments where you think things are not going your way and to actually have this daily reminder that perhaps it's not falling apart, but it's falling together.”

Tommaso Salvatori

A man wearing a green sweater is sitting on a bed with navy sheets in front of a stenciled artwork on the white wall behind. The bed is to the right of a window with a plant on the windowsill.

Watch: Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #869B

MIT List Center Student Lending Art Collection Highlight: Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing # 869B

Preview image for the video "MIT List Center Student Lending Art Collection Highlight: Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing # 869B".

New Acquisitions

A hand holding three cards with various colors and patterns is isolated against a white background.
Black and white print inside of a black frame with a white matte. The photograph depicts up close view of white wild flowers and leaves of neighboring plants.
A rectangular red velvet empty jewelry display with a silver frame. The shadow of six pendant necklaces remain where the items once were laying.
Abstract sepia colored image of grapes composed using melanin produced by genetically modified E. coli cells on paper.
Rectangular painting with a light gold frame and a white matte. The central image is of several abstract white roses with vibrant green stems with a bright red background.
Colored photograph in a silver frame of the back half of a white car parked in an open dirt lot with a tall metal bridge in the background.
Abstract sepia colored image generated with melanin produced by genetically modified E. coli cells on paper.
Print in a black frame with a thick white matte. The central photograph is of hands with a royal blue stone silver ring writing using a black ink pen on white lined paper.
Bright orange and yellow ombre with two line of shimmery gold text and a white frame. The text reads "I am screenless and I am wireless"
Painting with a light tan wood frame and a white matte depicting an abstract image of a plate of spaghetti and a block of cheese with a glass of lemonade sitting on top.
Rectangular painting with a light tan wood frame and a white matte. Two squares comprise the work. The left square is white with a thin yellow border and the right square is brown with accents of yellow organically throughout and a white bar cuts the brown square straight down the left-hand vertical third.
Painting with a light tan wood frame with a white matte depicting a hallway with two white rectangles that represent doorways and one white arch that represents a window. The walls are gray with pink and orange marbled rectangles above the window and doors.
Abstract oil painting with two bright yellow larger rectangles and an assortment of thinner rectangular shapes with mauve and green borders that are arranged in a puzzle-like manner to fill the page.
Archival print that appears to be white with black accent lines along the left vertical half and bright red intestine-like shapes on the right vertical half. The image is surrounded by a thick white matte and frame.