McNay Art Museum

The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room Spanish Colonial Revival-style mansion that sits on 23 acres (9.3 ha) that are landscaped with fountains, broad lawns and a Japanese-inspired garden and fishpond.

McNay Art Museum
Entrance to the original McNay home and museum.
Location of the McNay in Texas
Established1950
Location6000 N. New Braunfels Ave.
San Antonio, Texas
 United States
Coordinates29.485776°N 98.456233°W / 29.485776; -98.456233
TypeArt Museum
DirectorRichard Aste[1]
CuratorRene Paul Barilleaux, Lyle W. Williams
Websitewww.mcnayart.org

McNay was an American painter and art teacher who inherited a substantial oil fortune upon the death of her father. The museum was named after her, and has been expanded to include galleries of medieval and Renaissance artwork and a larger collection of 20th-century European and American modernist work. She built a home in 1927 designed by Atlee Ayres and his son Robert M. Ayres. Upon her death, the house was bequeathed to the City of San Antonio to house the museum.[2]

The museum focuses primarily on 19th- and 20th-century European and American art by such artists as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, Diego Rivera, Mary Cassatt, and Edward Hopper. The collection today consists of over 20,000 objects and is one of the finest collections of contemporary art and sculpture in the Southwestern United States. The museum also is home to the Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, which is one of the premiere collections of its kind in the U.S., and a research library with over 30,000 volumes. More recently, the McNay Art Museum recently added the Stieren Center, built by internationally renowned architect Jean-Paul Viguier, to display their Modern collection.

Collection highlights
  • Master of Frankfurt, Saint Barbara. 1460 ca. 32.1 x 22.8 cm. Oil on panel.
  • Master of Frankfurt, Saint Catherine. 1460 ca. 32.4 x 21.7 cm. Oil on panel.
  • Head of Christ (ca. 1579), El Greco, Head of Christ. 1579 ca. 50.5 x 38.9 cm. Oil on canvas.
  • Odilon Redon, Profile and Flowers. 1912. 70.2 x 55.2 cm. Pastel on paper.
  • Amedeo Modigliani, Girl with Blue Eyes. 1918. 61 x 46.4 cm. Oil on canvas.

References
  1. "Longtime McNay Director Chiego Passes Baton to Aste | McNay Art Museum". www.mcnayart.org. Retrieved Nov 28, 2019.
  2. Sawyer, Ellen. "The McNay Art Museum". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
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