Stuart Embury

As part of the gift, Embury also sponsors an annual public presentation. Wendy Katz, professor, School of Art, Art History & Design, and Embury himself have been featured as keynote speakers. Embury has presented on such topics as the work of 19th-century American painter James McNeill Whistler and the Tile Club, a group of American artists (Winslow Homer, J. Alden Weir, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and William Merritt Chase, among others) that organized in 1877. Embury focused on the club’s 10-year history and the book, now rare, it produced in 1886. During these talks, he brings out items from the collection to engage students and audience members. 

The Stuart P. Embury, M.D., Library of American Art contains primary material and books covering all major and many minor figures of American art, including painters, sculptors and printmakers. Thousands of exhibition catalogues include nearly complete runs from the National Academy of Design and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Some of the titles were published in the 1800s, and there are numerous catalogues raisonnés of major artists’ work, including that of Whistler, Remington, Inness and others. 

Since making the original donation, Embury has continued to collect and support the Libraries with further collection donations and a fund, the Dr. Stuart and Mrs. Lynn Embury Art Book Support Fund, which provides for a student internship to digitize the collection of exhibition catalogues and create an online presence for the collection.  

“We are deeply grateful for the Emburys’ donation to the university. It supports the scholarship of many of our campus collaborators and students,” said Mary Ellen Ducey, university archivist and Special Collections librarian. “To see students interact with Dr. Embury when he has presented on his collection demonstrates how the collection resonates now and will long into the future.

Collection Origins 

Embury loves to recount how the collection began soon after he and his family moved to Holdrege, Nebraska, in June 1970. He had just joined a private practice, and they had a new house to decorate. He started with a purchase of reproduction prints by Andrew Wyeth. After receiving brochures each month from the Original Prints Club, he bought more prints, including a lithograph by Pierre A. Renoir.

“Renoir is my favorite artist, and I didn’t know he was a printmaker, so I looked for a book about his prints, and I contacted Bernie Rosenberg, a book dealer, and he found The Graphic Work of Renoir for me,” Embury explained. 

After a few months passed, Embury came into possession of an etching by Mary Cassatt, and that led to his purchase of another book. As Embury described it, the pattern was repeated many times: he would buy a print and then look for a corresponding book on the artist. 

Eventually Embury bought other print reference books and his library grew faster. 

“Nearly every time we traveled in the U.S. and abroad, I would visit a bookstore and find a treasure,” Embury said. “But times have changed as the bookstores have disappeared, and you have to look on the internet, where few bargains can be found.” 

Embury says he has literally hundreds of stories about collecting the books, prints, and paintings that became a part of his collection.

The Future 

The Emburys joined the Libraries Campaign Committee in 2022 to assist the University Libraries in reaching its goal in the University of Nebraska’s capital campaign Only in Nebraska: A Campaign for Our University’s Future. 

Both of the Emburys have been philanthropic and contributed a great deal of volunteer work over the years, including numerous trips over four decades to Haiti for medical/mission work. Embury set up a scholarship fund, the Stuart Embury Fellowship, in the School of Art, Art History & Design to support students pursuing a master’s degree in art history.  

They are especially interested in the Libraries campaign priority to create a new Research Commons, resulting in a new home for Archives & Special Collections. A move from the lower level of Love Library South, the current location of Archives & Special Collections, would expand opportunities for growing and accessing prized research collections. 

Embury envisions a space capable of displaying the special items in his collection as well as the other collections stewarded by Archives & Special Collections. 

“I would like to see a reading room that reflects the grandeur of the collections—something with impressive architecture and art,” explains Embury, “an old-world style that is spectacular and where people can enjoy studying.” 

Since this story was published, Dr. Embury passed away November 5, 2025.