Emory Art in Review: The Balser Art Collection
Emory Art in Review: The Balser Art Collection
September 2026
September 2026
Walking through the Goizueta Foundation Center’s halls, you might just miss the various works that adorn Emory’s Goizueta Business School walls. However, once gestured, the works become impossibly hard to ignore. From artists like Braque, Chagall, Dali, Lichtenstein, Picasso, Rauschenberg, and Warhol, the collection sports references to some of the greats throughout the 20th and 21st century. Originally donated by Ron and Barbara Balser, the collection aims to “expand the realm of the possible for students” and further enhance Goizueta’s atmosphere of interdisciplinary prestige and depth.
Walking through the Goizueta Foundation Center’s halls, you might just miss the various works that adorn Emory’s Goizueta Business School walls. However, once gestured, the works become impossibly hard to ignore. From artists like Braque, Chagall, Dali, Lichtenstein, Picasso, Rauschenberg, and Warhol, the collection sports references to some of the greats throughout the 20th and 21st century. Originally donated by Ron and Barbara Balser, the collection aims to “expand the realm of the possible for students” and further enhance Goizueta’s atmosphere of interdisciplinary prestige and depth.
(Phrygian Cap and Orange Star, Alexander Calder, 1969)
The Balser Art Collection is personally curated by Ron and Barbara Balser themselves, and the curation favors the well-established and broadly legible, a fitting decision for the site as a business school. It’s a realm of curation and art in which various operations of business have intersected fluidly and frequently, even to those without specific interest in the arts, and a realm that asks us to re-consider and re-examine the players in our development to even the backgrounds as where this collection is situated. Walking through Goizueta’s Foundation Center, I’m sure many have subconsciously noted Roger Phillip’s sculpture, 3 Yellow Squares, yet few have rarely come to actively reflect on what a sculpture like Phillip’s could contribute to our learning and growth. It’s not to say all of us are meant to resonate especially deeply with these works, but as is the nature of a more commercial and varied collection, these works do extremely well in meeting the viewer where they are. And to those that are indeed able to offer a bit more time to the abundant meaning and dynamics of these works, the Balser Art Collection will not be shy to reward such a perspective.
The Balser Art Collection is personally curated by Ron and Barbara Balser themselves, and the curation favors the well-established and broadly legible, a fitting decision for the site as a business school. It’s a realm of curation and art in which various operations of business have intersected fluidly and frequently, even to those without specific interest in the arts, and a realm that asks us to re-consider and re-examine the players in our development to even the backgrounds as where this collection is situated. Walking through Goizueta’s Foundation Center, I’m sure many have subconsciously noted Roger Phillip’s sculpture, 3 Yellow Squares, yet few have rarely come to actively reflect on what a sculpture like Phillip’s could contribute to our learning and growth. It’s not to say all of us are meant to resonate especially deeply with these works, but as is the nature of a more commercial and varied collection, these works do extremely well in meeting the viewer where they are. And to those that are indeed able to offer a bit more time to the abundant meaning and dynamics of these works, the Balser Art Collection will not be shy to reward such a perspective.
(3 Yellow Squares, Roger Phillips)
(3 Yellow Squares, Roger Phillips)
In this collection of more than 180 works, the works are predominantly works on paper, meaning the pieces are either screenprint or lithography, printing techniques used to systematically replicate works and often signed with edition number and proof to regulate the work’s prestige and value. Although primarily acquiring the originals would prove to be logistically impossible, this ecosystem of prints subsequently serves as a microcosm of the greater commercial art world, mirroring much of how much of Goizueta’s systems and organizations also aim to prepare students professionally by imitating the structures and challenges that many will face post graduation. By sourcing these works from the print market, the Balsers introduce the ‘signified’ and a sense of direction to the original, unique work, a becoming of guiding inspiration for students to spur us in our pursuit of direction as well.
In a time where timelines and expectations are continuously compressed and expedited, it’s become a very hard thing to simply slow down. However, the Balser Art Collection maintains its subtle, but steadfast reminder to do just that. It’s a type of seeing and understanding almost directly antithetical to traditional business intuition, but supplemented by the Balsers’ philosophy towards art, the collection adds a dimension to our future jobs as consultants, bankers, specialists, analysts, so that we may continue to be the ones that set culture and systems. It’s undoubtedly a privilege to have such a collection in our Goizueta Business School, and ultimately a collection that asks us how we may keep learning and growing.
In this collection of more than 180 works, the works are predominantly works on paper, meaning the pieces are either screenprint or lithography, printing techniques used to systematically replicate works and often signed with edition number and proof to regulate the work’s prestige and value. Although primarily acquiring the originals would prove to be logistically impossible, this ecosystem of prints subsequently serves as a microcosm of the greater commercial art world, mirroring much of how much of Goizueta’s systems and organizations also aim to prepare students professionally by imitating the structures and challenges that many will face post graduation. By sourcing these works from the print market, the Balsers introduce the ‘signified’ and a sense of direction to the original, unique work, a becoming of guiding inspiration for students to spur us in our pursuit of direction as well.
In a time where timelines and expectations are continuously compressed and expedited, it’s become a very hard thing to simply slow down. However, the Balser Art Collection maintains its subtle, but steadfast reminder to do just that. It’s a type of seeing and understanding almost directly antithetical to traditional business intuition, but supplemented by the Balsers’ philosophy towards art, the collection adds a dimension to our future jobs as consultants, bankers, specialists, analysts, so that we may continue to be the ones that set culture and systems. It’s undoubtedly a privilege to have such a collection in our Goizueta Business School, and ultimately a collection that asks us how we may keep learning and growing.
(La Melodie Acide, Joan Miro, 1980)
(La Melodie Acide, Joan Miro, 1980)