Birmingham Museum of Art
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, American, African, Pre-Columbian, and Native American. The museum is also home to some Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts from the late 13th century to.
The Birmingham Museum of Art is owned by the City of Birmingham and encompasses in the city's cultural district. Erected in 1959, the present building was designed by architects Warren, Knight & Davis, and a major renovation and expansion by Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York was completed in 1993. The facility encompasses, including an outdoor sculpture garden. The memorial garden at the museum was established in 1955 by Red Mountain Garden Club president, Fariss Gambrill Lynn. It was expanded and altered as the museum expanded.
The museum is part of the Monuments Men and Women Museum Network, launched in 2021 by the Monuments Men and Women Foundation.
Collection highlights
African art
The museum's collection of nearly 2,000 objects of African art is derived from the major culture groups of sub-Saharan Africa and dates from the 12th century to the present. The collection features figure sculpture, masks, ritual objects, furniture and household and utilitarian objects, textiles, ceramics and metal arts, with an Egyptian false door, Yoruba mask, Benin bronze hip pendant, and a divination portrait of a king from Dahomey.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 decorative pieces by Tiffany Studios and Frank Lloyd Wright. The museum's Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California 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.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. In 1995, the museum organized Made in Alabama, an exhibition of art made within 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, and now has over 4,000 objects. The collection hails from China, Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asia, featuring a collection of Vietnamese ceramics, Buddhist and Hindu art, lacquer ware, ceramics, paintings, prints, and sculpture. Highlights include a rare Ming dynasty temple wall and Tang dynasty tomb figures from China; Jomon period pottery from Japan; and contemporary works such as The Grand Residence, considered by Chinese painter Wu Guanzhong among his most important works. Also, on long-term loan from The Smithsonian Institution is the Vetlesen Jade Collection of 16th to 19th-century pieces, one of the most important jade collections in the US.Contemporary art
The collection features painting, sculpture, video, photography, works on paper, and installation art 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. 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.Folk art
Since 2009, a permanent display of folk art has featured works by Bill Traylor, Thornton Dial, Alabama's quilters, and other self-taught artists. The Robert Cargo Folk Art Collection was donated to the museum in 2013.European art
Among the European art holdings is the Kress Collection of Renaissance Art, featuring Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculpture and decorative arts dating from the late 13th century to, with works by Pietro Perugino, Antonio Canaletto, and Paris Bordone. Other strengths include 17th-century Dutch paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, Ferdinand Bol, and Balthasar van der Ast; British 18th-century painting, with portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence; and 18th- and 19th-century French paintings by Francois-Hubert Drouais, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Courbet, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.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 Renaissance to present day. Notable holdings include the only public collection of late 19th-century European cast iron items in the US and the Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection of 18th-century French art, including furniture of the Louis XIV, XV, and XVI periods, mounted porcelain, gilt bronzes, paintings, and works on paper from the Regénce to the period following the French Revolution. The Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection comprises more than 1,400 objects illustrating the entire production of the Wedgwood factory from its early years through the 19th century.