Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
Established	1930
Location	Montgomery, Alabama, USA
Website	www.mmfa.org

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is a museum located in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, featuring several art collections. For seventy years, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts has been a showcase for the visual arts in Central Alabama. Permanent collection includes examples of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and sculpture, Southern regional art, Old Master prints and decorative arts. Also home to ARTWORKS, a participatory art gallery and studio for children.

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts was designed by the Montgomery architectural firm of Barganier, Davis, and Sims and opened in 1988. An addition was completed in 1993.[1]

History

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1930 with the mission "to collect, preserve, exhibit, and interpret art of the highest quality for the enrichment, enlightenment, and enjoyment of its public."[2] The Museum is the oldest fine arts museum in Alabama and was the first museum in Alabama to be accredited by the American Association of Museums in June 1978. The Museum moved to its current home, a state-of-the-art facility in the Blount Cultural Park, in 1988. As one of the leading cultural institutions in the region, the Museum has enjoyed substantial public support, annually growing attendance, and increasing public demand for its programs and educational resources.

The Museum's permanent collection is one of the finest in the Southeast. The principal holdings of American paintings, sculpture, and works on paper represent the work of artists of national as well as regional reputation, and from all ethnic backgrounds. The core of the American collection is the outstanding Blount Collection of American Art, a group of 41 paintings, including works by American masters John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, and Winslow Homer. The MMFA boasts a stellar collection of Old Master prints, including works by Rembrandt, Dürer, and Whistler. The Museum hosts a broad range of temporary exhibitions to enhance its offerings with art from international and American collections as well as works by contemporary artists.

Education based on its collection and exhibitions is at the heart of the Museum's public mission. The MMFA's art reference library has more than 4,000 volumes, periodicals, videotapes, and CDs, available to those needing information or doing research. One major component of the education program is ARTWORKS, an interactive gallery designed to interpret items from the Museum's permanent collection through hands-on exhibits. The ARTWORKS gallery is a major draw for families and attracts over 60,000 people each year. Other programs for youth include a preschool puppet show; a tour program for every third grade student in Montgomery Public Schools; after school programs for underserved youth, and the AP Art History Course that allows high school students to earn college credit. In addition to ongoing programs, the MMFA offers two major events for families each year, Holiday Open House and the spring Flimp Festival. Educational programming for all ages is offered through workshops, tours, lectures, and other activities. From an annual attendance of 160,000 visitors, the Museum estimates that roughly half of its visitors participate in an educational offering.

The MMFA receives approximately two-thirds of its annual budget from the City and County of Montgomery with the remainder provided through the MMFA Association, a private support group. Corporate and individual memberships comprise the largest source of MMFA Association revenue. Additional income is generated through the Museum Shop, special events, catalogue sales and program fees. The Museum recently completed an $8 million capital campaign for endowment and building expansion. The new Education Wing, dedicated in March 2007, provided much-needed gallery space and doubled the size of the ARTWORKS interactive gallery and studio space. This expansion will allow the Museum to more fully accommodate the demands of growing public interest.

Now in its 75th year, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is the jewel of the cultural arts in Montgomery and flourishes with the successful partnership of the public and private sectors.

The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program.

Galleries and Collections

Hudson and Krenshaw Galleries

• Jacques Amans, Portrait of J.A. Rozier
• Adolph Weinman, Rising Day
• Adolph Weinman, Descending Night

Blount Collection

• John Singer Sargent Mrs. Louis E. Raphael (Henriette Goldschmidt) (ca. 1906)
• John Sloan, Grand Central Station - Currently on tour as part of Seeing the City: Sloan's New York

Decorative Arts

• Worcester Porcelain Factory, Tankard, 1754-1755
• Worcester Porcelain Factory, Teapot and cover, c1758-1760

Young Gallery

• Dale Kennington, Long Day, Late Night recto verso

Studio Glass (Weil Atrium)

• Robin Grebe, Sybil, (2006)
• William Morris, Reliquary Vessel, (1998)

Temporary Exhibitions

• November 1, 2008-January 25, 2009 The Art of the Theatre [3]
• August 31-November 9, 2008 Jun Kaneko [4]
• June 4-October 19, 2008 American Impressionism from the Phillips Collection [5]
• March 27-June 15, 2008 Jousef Karsh: A Centennial Celebration [6]
• March 22-June 15, 2008 Babar's Museum of Art [7]
• December 1, 2007-March 2, 2008 American Streamlined Designs: The World of Tomorrow [8]
• September 15-November 18, 2007 William H. Johnson's World on Paper [9]
• September 8-November 4, 2007 Kathryn Tucker Windham: Every Picture Tells a Story [10]
• August 12-September 24, 2006 Adventures in Collecting Art: American Paintings from the Collections of Charles and Babette Wampold and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
• August 12-September 24, 2006 Poetic Expressions of Mortality: Figurative Ceramics From the Porter*Price Collection
• May 27-July 30, 2006 Hidden Treasures: Five Centuries of Masterworks on Paper from the Collection of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
• March 25-May 21, 2006 Protest in Montgomery: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Drawings by Harvey Dinnerstein and Burt Silverman
• March 25-May 21, 2006 Fleeting Impressions: Prints by James McNeill Whistler
• March 4-September 10, 2006 Just How I Picture It in My Mind: Contemporary African American Quilts from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
• March 4-May 14, 2006 Stars Falling on Alabama: Cappy Thompson Glass
• January 21-March 26, 2006 Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints - Genesis, Hiroshima, and Toussaint L'Ouverture - Thirty-one color prints created by Jacob Lawrence [11]
• November 12-December 31, 2005 Collecting the Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
• September 8, 2005-July 16, 2006 Africa Celebrates the Art of Living: African Art from the Collection of Dileep & Martha Mehta
• August 20-October 23, 2005 Duane Hanson: Portraits from the Heartland
• June 11-August 7, 2005 Ansel Adams and the American Landscape
• June 11-September 4, 2005 It's a Dog's Life: Photography by William Wegman from The Polaroid Collection
• April 9-June 5, 2005 Billie Ruth Sudduth: Math in a Basket
• April 9-June 5, 2005 36th Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition
• January 15-March 27, 2005 Walker Evans and James Agee: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
• January 15-March 27, 2005 Paintings by Jimmy Lee Sudduth
• January 15-March 27, 2005 William Christenberry: The Brownie Photographs
• November 20, 2004-January 2, 2005 George Taylor: Montgomery Muses
• October 23, 2004-January 2, 2005 Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age
• October 2-November 14, 2004 Jeffrey Lewis: Encaustic Paintings
• October 2, 2004-January 2, 2005 Kenneth Procter: The Duino Suite
• August 7-October 3, 2004 Dale Kennington: Contemporary Mythologies
• August 7-October 3, 2004 The Point of the Pen: The Editorial Cartoons of Frank M. Spangler, Sr.
• September 6-December 7, 2003 Nostalgic Journey: American Illustration from the Collection of the Delaware Art Museum - Ninety original source drawings and paintings for printed illustrations drawn from the extensive collection of the Delaware Art Museum.
• July 17-September 2, 2001 Chester Higgins, Jr.: Family, Friends, and Acquaintances [12]
• July 7-September 9, 2001 Alabama Folk Pottery
• May 26-August 19, 2001 From the Fire: Contemporary Korean Ceramics
• May 17-July 8, 2001 Beth Maynor Young: Rivers Run Through It
• January 13-March 11, 2001 Carlton Nell - Exhibition features delicate floral compositions by Carlton Nell
• January 13-March 11, 2001 Rick Beck: Sculpture - Features large, cast glass sculpture by Rick Beck, many in the forms of objects normally seen as industrial tools. [13]
• November 11, 2000-January 21, 2001 Carvings by Fred Webster - Twenty narrative groupings of biblical stories carved by Fred Webster.
• November 11, 2000-January 7, 2001 after HISTORY: The Paintings of David Bierk - Fusion of past and present works from David Bierk's early career to his most recent pieces.
• August 26-October 22, 2000 Through These Eyes: The Photographs of P. H. Polk - Dozens of photographs from Prentice Herman Polk, official photographer of Tuskegee University.
• April 1-May 14, 2000 Pride in Place: Landscapes by The Eight in Southern Collections - Forty works from the American painters known as The Eight
• January 29-March 26, 2000 Edward Hopper: The Watercolors - Fifty-six watercolors created by Edward Hopper. [14]
• January 8-February 27, 2000 Ship to Shore: Marine Paintings from the Butler Institute of American Art - Sixty works from the Butler Institute of American Art.
• October 30, 1999-January 2, 2000 Towards the Horizon: Recent Works on Paper by Mary Ellen Doyle - Fifteen watercolor paintings by Mary Ellen Doyle, displayed in The Weil Graphic Arts Study Center.
• April 10-May 23, 1999 Kurt Weiser: Potter and Painter - Approximately fifteen objects by Kurt Weiser.

External links

• Museum website
• How to cite artwork