Birmingham Museum of Art
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Established | April 1951 |
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Location | 2000 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd. North (formerly 8th Avenue North) Birmingham, Alabama, US |
Coordinates | 33°31′18.8″N 86°48′36.7″W / 33.521889°N 86.810194°W |
Type | Municipal art museum |
Director | Graham Boettcher |
Website | www |
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in
paintings, sculptures,and decorative arts from the late 13th century to c. 1750.The Birmingham Museum of Art is owned by the City of Birmingham and encompasses 3.9 acres (16,000 m2) in the heart of the city's cultural district. Erected in 1959, the present building was designed by architects Warren, Knight and Davis, and a major renovation and expansion by Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York was completed in 1993. The facility encompasses 180,000 square feet (17,000 m2), including an outdoor sculpture garden.
The museum is part of the Monuments Men and Women Museum Network, launched in 2021 by the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art.[1]
Collection highlights
African art
The museum's growing collection of nearly 2,000 objects is derived from the major culture groups of
American art
Spanning the late 18th through mid-20th century, the museum's collection of American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts features paintings by Gilbert Stuart, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O'Keeffe; sculptures by Hiram Powers and Frederic Remington; and important decorative pieces by Tiffany Studios and Frank Lloyd Wright. Considered one of the three most important American landscape paintings, the museum's Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California (1865) by Bierstadt was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities as one of 40 American masterpieces that best depict the people, places, and events that have shaped America and tell its story.[2]
Art of Alabama
Since opening in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art has collected and exhibited the art of Alabama. Among the earliest works to enter the collection were paintings by significant Alabama artists including the miniaturist Hannah Elliott and the landscapist Carrie Hill. Throughout its history, the museum has continued its commitment to the arts of Alabama. In 1995, it organized Made in Alabama, a groundbreaking survey of artistic production in the state during the 19th century. In addition to collecting the works of academically trained native artists, the museum has built a collection of folk art, including painting, sculpture, quilts, and pottery.
Asian art
The museum's Asian art collection started with a gift of Chinese textiles in 1951, today, with more than 4,000 objects, is the largest and most comprehensive in the Southeast. The collection hails from
Contemporary art
The collection features painting, sculpture, video, photography, works on paper, and installation art that illuminates movements and trends from the 1960s to the present, ranging from artists such as Joan Mitchell, Andy Warhol, Bill Viola, Lynda Benglis, Cham Hendon, Kerry James Marshall, Callum Innes, Grace Hartigan, Larry Rivers, Louise Nevelson, Frank Fleming and Philip Guston, to a generation of artists that are defining the new century. The Modern and Contemporary Art collection also contains work by photographers William Christenberry, Robert Frank, Duane Michals, Gordon Parks, and Philip Trager, as well as images from the civil rights era by Danny Lyon, Spider Martin, Chris McNair, Charles Moore, and Wayne Sides.[3]
Folk art
Since 2009, a permanent display of folk art has featured works by Bill Traylor, Thornton Dial, Alabama's outstanding quilters, and other self-taught artists. The Robert Cargo Folk Art Collection was donated to the museum in 2013.[4]
European art
Among the highlights of the
European decorative arts
One of the foundations of the museum's permanent collection, the European decorative arts comprise more than 12,000 objects including ceramics, glass, and furniture dating from the
Native American art
The museum features a large installation of
Pre-Columbian art
The collection features stunning objects from
The Charles W. Ireland Sculpture Garden
This multi-level sculpture garden features works by artists such as Fernando Botero, Jacques Lipchitz and Auguste Rodin as well as three site-specific artworks commissioned by the Museum: Lithos II (1993) by Elyn Zimmerman, a water wall and pool of textured granite blocks set into the curving east wall of the garden; Blue Pools Courtyard (1993) by artist Valerie Jaudon, featuring inlaid tile pools, plantings, and brick and bluestone pavers; and Sol LeWitt's Bands of Color in Various Directions, commissioned in 2001 in celebration of the museum's 50th anniversary.
The Clarence B. Hanson Jr. Library
Named for Clarence Bloodworth Hanson Jr., former publisher of the
History
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Birmingham Art Club
The roots of the museum date back to 1908 and the founding of the "Birmingham Art Club which endeavored to amass a public art collection for the benefit of the citizens of Birmingham, which had been founded as a new industrial city only 37 years prior. In 1927 they were able to display their collection in the galleries of the new Birmingham Public Library. Over the next two decades the club continued to add to the collection and raise support in the press and in City Hall for the concept of a new building.
First exhibition
In September 1950 a governing board was created to oversee the creation of a museum as "an institution of public service, educational and recreational, with all the people welcome". The following February the board hired Richard Foster Howard to serve as the first museum director. In April 1951 the newly established Birmingham Museum of Art presented a public "Opening Exhibition" housed in five unused rooms in City Hall. The exhibition included some pieces from the existing Art Club collection as well as a large number of loaned works from museums across the Eastern half of the United States. The result was considered to be "the finest showing of great objects of art in the South to date."[5]
New building
The publicity created by the exhibition led to several important gifts, notably of Chinese ceramics and textiles,
Expansions
A level of upper floor galleries was added to the building's west wing in 1965. In 1967 a new east wing was completed. Additional land was purchased in 1969, and in 1974 another addition included a three-story rebuilding of the east wing. Further reworking of the east wing added a conservation lab, loading dock, and a second public entrance to the building in 1979, and the following year, gallery space was expanded by 28,000 square feet (2,600 m2). In 1986 another expansion project was planned and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, in conjunction with local architect KPS Group, Inc., was selected to oversee the design, which included provision for a new outdoor sculpture garden and 50,000 square feet (5,000 m2) of exhibition space bringing the total to 180,000 square feet (15,400 m2).
See also
- List of largest art museums
- North American Reciprocal Museums
References
- Howard, Helen Boswell and Richard Foster Howard. (April 1951). Catalogue of the Opening Exhibition. Birmingham Museum of Art: Birmingham, Alabama. April 8 through June 3, 1951.
- Birmingham Museum of Art. (1993) Masterpieces East & West from the collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Museum of Art. ISBN 0-931394-38-4
- ^ "A New Museum Network Is Focusing On the Monuments Men's Long-Overlooked Postwar Cultural Contributions". Artnet News. 2021-06-17. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
- ^ "Birmingham Museum of Art - Virtual Tour". Joy of Museums Virtual Tours. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
- ^ Birmingham Museum of Art, Modern and Contemporary Art Collection: Description summary reference. (March 21, 2018). "The Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art". Association of Art Museum Directors. Archived from the original on 2021-11-17. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
- ^ Callis, Sarah Grace (2020-11-24). "Damballah or St. Patrick: Haitian Vodou in Birmingham". Magic City Religion. Archived from the original on 2020-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-09.
- ^ "History & Timeline | Birmingham Museum of Art". 2014-01-13. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
External links
- Official website
- Birmingham Museum of Art within Google Arts & Culture
- Media related to Birmingham Museum of Art at Wikimedia Commons