Les Bicyclettes, from the Dream Series

Both the artist and the donor of this work, who were friends in college, are important Oberlin College alumnae. Smock is an artist whose work was owned by Martin Luther King, Jr., and who exhibited her works alongside those of Picasso and Giacometti; Cole is a distinguished scholar, former museum director, and former college president. The subject comes from a drawing the artist made while in her senior year at Oberlin (1957–58), which accompanied a poem. She made the print—showing two bicycles, with two figures at play in a field and a butterfly fluttering above—some ten years later, harkening back to her earlier idea.