Another donation that helped shape the Watkins Collection was the Edward and Margaret Bruce Collection donated during the 1960s. The Bruces were strong advocates for the arts and more specifically for artists when they arrived in Washington in the 1930s. As Chief of the Fine Arts Section at the Treasury Department, Edward initiated the Public Works of Art Project which offered jobs to artists during the Great Depression. The Bruces felt strongly that the best way to support artists was to buy their art and as a result the Watkins Collection has work by Othon Coubine, Ben Summerford, Mitchell Jamieson and many others.

In the early 1990s, AU created the Centennial Art Collection Committee to help expand the contemporary and Modern art holdings of the Watkins Collection. With the help of the artists and collectors on the Committee, the Watkins Collection acquired over seventy-five works, including paintings, prints, and sculpture by Willem DeLooper, Paul Reed,Tom Downing, Sam Gilliam, Lou Stovall, Andy Warhol, and Ed Pashke.

Today, the Watkins Collection is a multi-faceted art collection. It is primarily an American and European collection, with its strongest emphasis on art created by artists from the Washington, DC area.

For sixty years the Watkins Collection has played an important if quiet role in preserving the cultural history of Washington, DC. Through a deep dedication to the artist, the Collection has grown into a substantial resource for visual artists and their ideas through the second half of the 20th century. Now with the opening of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, the Watkins Collection will finally have an appropriate home, providing the space, support, and visibility it deserves as it continues to grow.

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