Birmingham Museum of Art

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The Birmingham Museum of Art is a large public art museum, located in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. It is currently the largest municipal art museum in the Southern United States. The museum's collection encompasses more than 21,000 objects from all periods of artistic production and in all media. Particular strengths of the collection are in decorative arts (particularly German cast-iron and Wedgwood objects) and Asian art. The museum provides year-round educational activities for the public and hosts frequent touring and special exhibitions.

1 History
2 Major collections
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] 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.

[edit] Opening 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."

[edit] New building

The publicity created by the exhibition led to several important gifts, notably of Chinese ceramics and textiles, Japanese prints, Old master prints, costumes, glass and oil paintings. In 1952 the Samuel H. Kress Foundation presented 29 paintings from the Italian Renaissance as a long-term loan to the new museum, forming the core of the collection of European paintings. In 1954 a large bequest made possible a new museum building. Land was purchased the next year and a design commission for a new museum building was given to the office of Warren Knight & Davis. The "Oscar Wells Memorial Building" opened to the public on May 3, 1959. In the following years the Kress Foundation made two important gifts to the museum, the trusteeship of a collection of Renaissance furniture and decorative objects in 1959, and the deed to the Italian paintings already on loan, along with 8 additional works from the same period. The following year, American Cast Iron Pipe Company loaned its Lamprecht Collection of German cast-iron objects (the largest in the world).

[edit] Expansions

In 1965 a new wing of upper floor galleries was added to the building's west wing. The following year an art library was opened in the building. In 1967 a new east wing was completed. Additional land was purchased in 1969. In 1974 another addition was completed with a three-story rebuilding of the east wing. In 1979 further reworking of the east wing added a conservation lab, loading dock, and second public entrance to the building. In 1980 gallery space was expanded by 28,000 square feet. In 1986 another expansion project was planned and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes was selected to oversee the design, which included provision for a new outdoor sculpture garden and 50,000 square feet of exhibit space bringing the total to 166,000 square feet.

[edit] Major collections

Significant individual collections at the Birmingham Museum of Art include:

The Asian Art Collection, over 3,000 works featuring the art of China, Japan, Korea, India and Tibet as well as works from Southeast Asia. Particular strengths include Buddhist art, Japanese prints, Qing dynasty Chinese paintings, and modern prints. Significant individual works include a 15th century temple mural from China, a Tang dynasty ceramic horse, screens by Matsumura Keibun, and a 15th century Kasuga mandala.
The Collection of Decorative Arts includes several distinct collections:
- The Beeson Collection of Wedgwood includes over 1,600 objects as well as a rare book library with 1,200 documents.
- The Eugenia Woodward Hitt collection has 800-plus French objects including furniture, bronzes, wall clocks and other pieces from the 18th century.
- The Lamprecht Collection of German decorative cast iron is the largest of its kind in the world, including more than 1,000 individual pieces.
- Smaller collections include English silver and ceramics, works in glass, 19th and 20th century furniture and decorative arts crafted in the South.
Photographs, Prints and Drawings is a large department with over 3,000 works. The collection of old master prints and later works covers the 16th-21st centuries. The photographic holdings include significant artistic as well as historical and documentary works.
The nationally-recognized African art collection features sculpture from West and Central Africa, South African beadwork and pan-African textiles.
The Pre-Columbian collection includes a variety of figures, adornments and ritual implements.
The Native American collection includes historic and contemporary work from a variety of cultures with strengths in the Northwest and Plains indians.
The Textiles collection is displayed among several galleries and includes African, American, European and Asian textiles and costumes. The Cargo collection of documented Alabama-made quilts is an important recent acquisition.
Sculptures in the Museum's collection number upwards of 200, including some ever-popular Remington bronzes as well as monumental contemporary works, including site-specific work by Sol LeWitt.
The collection of Paintings numbers over 800 and includes important works of the Italian Renaissance, Dutch Golden Age paintings, French and English portraiture, American paintings, and Contemporary works. The American galleries were re-installed in 2001 under the direction of then-curator of paintings and sculpture David Moos. The collection of 19th century European masters is small, but has been bolstered by important recent additions and moved to new galleries in 2006.

[edit] 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