The museum also encompasses an outdoor sculpture garden features more than 30 large-scale works by American modern and contemporary artists.

[2] The museum exhibited its collection in locations around the university, including Morrill Hall, until a dedicated building was completed in 1963.

[3] Located at the junction of 12th and R Streets, on the city campus of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the Sheldon was designed by architect Philip Johnson and is a U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

[5] As part of Johnson's artist statement,[6] he said of the Sheldon “[T]oday the museum building stands as a community like the church courthouse of the last century.

The architect must therefore create, inside and out, a symbolic structure which the community can refer to with some pride … The symbolic function of the Sheldon Gallery is fulfilled, I feel, not only the ‘classical’ exterior of travertine but mainly by the great hall which orients the visitor, as well as elevating his spirits.” The museum was designed with the idea of avoiding what he referred to as “museum fatigue”.

Among them are works by Gaston Lachaise, Jacques Lipchitz, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, David Smith, Lyman Kipp, William G. Tucker, Bryan Hunt, Mark di Suvero, Michael Heizer, and Richard Serra.

A woman once called a secretary and complained “I think Norman Geske should be fired, and what's more, he should be asked to leave the state because of all the junk he's introduced into the sunken garden south of the gallery.

Police speculated that it had been taken in the course of post-game revelry following the university football team's victory in the 1998 Orange Bowl.

The gallery's director hypothesized that the thief or thieves had been unaware of the work's value, estimated at over $500,000, and, after learning this, had placed it where it would be discovered by security guards during their rounds.