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The Mary Buie and Kate Skipwith Collections

Explore the Mary Buie and Kate Skipwith Collection, featuring decorative arts, paintings, and historic family memorabilia that formed the foundation of the University of Mississippi Museum.

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3 visitors view framed paintings displayed in the Mary Buie and Kate Skipwith Collection gallery, standing in front of a softly colored wall featuring historic portrait and decorative artworks.

About Mary Buie and Kate Skipwith

Mary Carter Skipwith Buie and Kate Anderson Skipwith were half-sisters from Oxford, Mississippi, who, because of their shared love of history, art, and travel, built what would become the University of Mississippi Museum. Their foundational collection included over 300 fans from European and Asian cultures, decorative art of fine porcelain and silver, Mary Buie's paintings, and their family's historical memorabilia from the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, and WWI.

Their family settled in Oxford, Mississippi, in about 1870 after living in New Orleans, Virginia, and Tennessee. Mary Skipwith married Henry T. Buie in 1883, and the couple moved to Chicago shortly thereafter. In Chicago, Mary continued to study art and found employment as a copy artist at the department store, Marshall Field's Company. She also kept a studio where she would make miniature portraits.

Kate Skipwith remained unmarried and deeply devoted to her family, faith, and charitable work. After their parents passed, Kate continued to live with their eldest sibling, Cornelia Greene Skipwith. The two made a modest income selling cakes and pies from their home. Their brother John Adair "Adair" provided additional support and later bought them a house with five acres on University Avenue, where the Museum is now situated. When he died in 1915, he left his sizable fortune entirely to Kate Skipwith.

Following her husband's death in 1922 and a decline in her health, Mary Buie returned to Oxford in about 1930 to live with her only remaining sibling, Kate. In her later years, Mary shared with her sister her wish to create a museum in Oxford to display her art and their family's historic memorabilia.

When Mary died in 1937, Kate built the Mary Buie Museum next to their house and gifted it to the city in 1939. Kate continued to dedicate her time and money to the Museum until she died in 1961, leaving substantial wealth in a trust to expand the Museum. The University of Mississippi received the deed from the city in 1974 and named the 1977 building addition the Kate Skipwith Teaching Museum.

The Collection at a Glance

View the permanent installation of decorative arts, paintings, and historic memorabilia at the UM Museum or explore the online collection from the Mary Buie and Kate Skipwith Collection.
Expand image: Portrait of Mary Buie rendered on porcelain and glass, showing a young woman in profile with hair styled up, wearing a high-collared white dress, set within a brass frame against a soft, pale background.
Portrait of Mary Buie
Expand image: Oil portrait titled Portrait of Miss Kate Skipwith (1945) by Mary Louise Pegues, depicting a woman with white hair and blue eyes wearing a soft pink dress with a lace collar, framed against a muted blue background.
Portrait of Miss Kate Skipwith
Expand image: Watercolor titled The Cardinal (1930) by Mary Buie, showing a seated cardinal in red robes reading a document at a table with an ink spill, presented in an ornate gilt frame and created as a copy of a work by François Bruneri.
The Cardinal
Expand image: Hand-colored photographic image titled Magdalene Reading (1930) by Mary Buie, showing a reclining blonde woman draped in blue and white fabric, reading a book propped on a skull, presented in a wood and gilt frame.
Magdalene Reading
Expand image: Watercolor titled Song of the Lark (1930) by Mary Buie, depicting a woman standing in a harvested field holding a sickle, shown as a framed copy of Jules Breton’s 1884 painting, with warm sky tones and rural landscape.
Song of the Lark
Expand image: Watercolor titled The Boy Blue (1930) by Mary Buie, depicting a young boy in a blue 17th-century-style outfit standing in a landscape, presented as a framed copy of Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy.
The Boy Blue
Expand image: Small hand-painted porcelain bowl by Kate Skipwith and Haviland, featuring delicate red, pink, white, and yellow blossoms with green leaves around the rim, a pale blue-green exterior, and a thin gold edge on a light interior background.
Small Hand Painted China Bowl
Expand image: Decorative belt pin brooch from the Mary Buie Collection featuring a painted portrait of Marie Antoinette in 18th-century dress, set within a gold-toned frame with wing-like sides and ornate beaded detailing.
Marie Antoinette Belt Pin Brooch

Check Out Our Other Collections

Browse more of the Museum’s diverse collections, each offering unique artworks and artifacts.
  • Close-up of a classical marble sculpture head, showing a serene female face with softly carved features, wavy hair pulled back, and weathered stone surface against a neutral background.

    David M. Robinson Memorial Collection

    The David M. Robinson Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities is one of the finest university collections of its kind in the United States. Covering the period from 1500 B.C. to 300 A.D., the collection contains Greek and Roman sculpture, Greek decorated pottery, architectural fragments, small artifacts in terracotta and bronze, and Greek and Roman coins. Portions of this collection are on display at all times.

    David M. Robinson Memorial Collection View the Online Collection
  • The Millington Barnard Collection of Scientific Instruments

    Millington-Barnard Collection of Scientific Instruments

    Step into the 19th century with nearly 500 instruments used to teach physics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. This collection includes telescopes, mechanical models, and demonstration devices from 1848–1861.

    Millington-Barnard Collection
  • Folk art painting titled Untitled (children’s game) (1966) by Theora Hamblett, depicting a group of children in red, blue, and yellow dresses holding hands in a circle beneath three large autumn-colored trees, with fallen leaves scattered on the ground in a bright, simplified landscape.

    Theora Hamblett Collection

    Theora Hamblett, a self-taught Mississippi artist who began painting later in life, became renowned for her colorful depictions of childhood memories, dreams, and religious visions; her distinctive, faith-driven works now form a cornerstone of the University of Mississippi Museum’s collection.

    Theora Hamblett Collection View the Online Collection
  • Mixed media artwork titled Figures (1990s) by Charlie Lucas, showing loosely drawn human and animal figures layered with bold yellow, green, and white fields, red curved forms, and energetic scribbled lines in an expressive, abstract folk art style.

    Southern Folk Art Collection

    This collection highlights Southern folk and self-taught artists who used non-traditional materials to depict familiar scenes of faith, daily life, and the world around them. Created primarily in the late 19th and 20th centuries, these deeply personal works document Southern culture while reflecting how artists often turned to art after hardship, loss, or spiritual calling. Together, the collection preserves powerful expressions of resilience, creativity, and lived experience across the Southeastern United States.

    Southern Folk Art Collection View the Online Collection
  • Abstract oil painting titled Los Angeles (1946) by Man Ray, featuring intersecting horizontal and vertical bands of bright red, blue, yellow, green, white, and orange on a dark background, evoking a stylized street map.

    The Seymour Lawrence Collection of American Art

    In 1998, editor and publisher Seymour Lawrence gave much of his personal art collection to the museum and funded the construction of the Seymour Lawrence Gallery of American Art. Included in this collection are works by Georgia O’Keefe, Kurt Vonnegut, Man Ray, Russell Chatham, Morris Graves, Marsden Hartley, Mark Tobey, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, among others.

    Seymour Lawrence Collection View the Online Collection
  • Ancient Greek black-figure kylix with two horizontal handles, decorated around the exterior with silhouetted figures of soldiers and athletes engaged in combat and boxing, and a central interior scene of a running youth, shown on a pedestal against a white background.

    Online Collections

    Various works from the Museum’s collections are always on view in the galleries. Some collections are also available online.

    View Online Collections