In 1959, the University Gallery was looking to bring in some hot young artists from the New York art scene. They wrote to (the now famous) Jasper Johns and his gallerist, Leo Castelli, and managed to put up a show of Johns’ work in 1960 — and this was only two years after Johns had his first solo show in New York. The letter to Johns states:

The University Gallery, on a very modest budget, hopes to be able to initiate a new program which will aim at bringing to the campus a series of small exhibitions of work by New York artists of interest.

Letter to Jasper Johns and a list of the pieces loaned: