Louise H. Lincoln, an art historian specializing in Pacific Island, African and American Indian art, has been named the new director of the DePaul University Art Gallery.

Lincoln returns to Chicago after a 20-year career at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where for the last 10 years she was curator of the institute’s Department of African, Oceanic, and New World Cultures.

In addition to mounting three exhibits annually and teaching art history, Lincoln is responsible for the university’s art collection, much of which is currently displayed in the university’s administrative offices. The collection consists primarily of paintings, prints, photography and drawings and has a strong representation of religious imagery.

"I have found a great interest in a growing role for the art gallery at DePaul," Lincoln said. "There is an understanding that the gallery can be part of the broader university life."

In that vein, Lincoln expects to work more closely with DePaul’s eight colleges and schools.

More immediately, Lincoln will focus her efforts on the current show, "Apocalypse Now and Then: Art and the End of Time," and exhibitions for DePaul’s Centennial celebration taking place between June 1998 and June 1999. Next fall’s exhibit will highlight the natural sciences and will coincide with the opening of DePaul’s new biological and environmental sciences facility. The winter 1999 exhibit will showcase the humanities and the spring 1999 show will explore the social sciences.

Although she is a Maryland native, Lincoln said, "I feel like I’ve come home to Chicago." Lincoln worked at the University of Chicago Press from 1972 to 1976 in the rights and permissions department and later as an acquisitions editor. She has made her new home in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

The DePaul Art Gallery is located in McGaw Hall, 802 W. Belden Ave., on DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus. Its hours are Mondays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All exhibits are free and open to the public. For more information, call the gallery at 773/325-7506.