Knoxville Museum of Art

infobox Museum
name= Knoxville Museum of Art


established= 1961
location= 1050 World’s Fair Park, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
director= David L. Butler
website= [http://www.knoxart.org/ www.knoxart.org]

The Knoxville Museum of Art is a Contemporary Art museum located at 1050 World's Fair Park in Knoxville, Tennessee. The KMA is committed to developing exhibitions by emerging artists of national and international reputation.

The museum was founded by Mary Katherine Dulin Folger in 1961 as the Dulin Gallery of Art. The museum merged with the Knoxville Art Center in 1962, and the name was changed in 1987 to the Knoxville Museum of Art, the same year that the museum moved to the Candy Factory building at the World's Fair site. Before the move, it had been housed in the H.L. Dulin House at 3100 Kingston Pike. The Dulin House was designed in 1915 by prominent architect John Russell Pope in the Neoclassical Revival style.

The present 53,200 square foot museum building was completed in 1990 following an $11 million community fundraising campaign. The steel and concrete building, designed by New York architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, has an exterior skin of Tennessee pink marble. The building is named for Jim Clayton, who was the largest donor to its construction.

The Museum collection consists of work primarily from the 20th and 21st century. Included in the collection are many well-known artists, including Charles Burchfield, Robert Longo, Loretta Lux, William Morris, Kenneth Snelson, and Robert Stackhouse. The museum is also committed to the preservation and development of Arts in East Tennessee. The collection holds examples of work by many of East Tennessee's greatest artists, including Catherine Wiley, Joseph Delaney, Walter Hollis Stevens, Richard Jolley, and Bessie Harvey.

The KMA has a commitment to the development and exhibition of new work by contemporary artists. Past exhibitions at the Museum have featured solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Jun Kaneko, Candida Höfer, Jim Campbell, Johanna Billing and Chuck Close.

The Museum also has an ongoing interest in the creation of first solo museum shows for promising new artists. As part of this ongoing series, KMA has been host to solo exhibitions by artists such as Tam Van Tran, Clare Rojas, Seonna Hong , and Tomory Dodge.

The museum includes five galleries, as well as a Sculpture Terrace, an Exploratory Gallery, and two large outdoor garden areas.

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References

* "Knoxville: Fifty Landmarks." (Knoxville: The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976).

External links

* [http://www.knoxart.org/ Knoxville Museum of Art]
* [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=K023 Knoxville Museum of Art] in Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture