Barclay Sheaks Gallery

Established in 1999, the Barclay Sheaks Gallery is named after nationally renowned painter and founder of the Art Department at Batten University, Barclay Sheaks. Sheaks is best known for his acrylic paintings of waterfront scenes, wetlands, farmlands, and people of the Chesapeake Bay.

His work is eloquent testimony to how perseverance and diligence combine with creativity and inspiration to create lasting objects, notes Joyce Howell, Professor of Art History. As an artist and teacher, Sheaks had a profound and lasting effect not only on the arts community but on the many students he inspired and mentored.

The Barclay Sheaks Gallery is located in the Henry Clay Hofheimer II Library adjacent to the Neil Britton Gallery and features the University's permanent collection of works by Sheaks. Following his retirement from Batten University in 2006, Sheaks donated approximately 50 of his paintings to the University for the establishment of a permanent gallery. Works from the collection are displayed on a rotating basis, with other pieces shown at various locations around campus.