Elisabet Ney Museum, Art museum in Hyde Park district, Austin, United States.
The Elisabet Ney Museum is an art museum in Austin's Hyde Park district housed in a limestone building. It displays sculptures, portraits, and personal belongings that show her work from the 1850s through the early 1900s.
Formosa, Ney's studio, was completed in 1893 and enlarged in 1902, making it the earliest art studio built in Texas. After Ney died in 1907, Ella and Joseph B. Dibrell bought the building to keep it as an art center in her memory, and Ella Dibrell helped form the Texas Fine Arts Association to create the museum. The City of Austin took ownership in 1941, and the building joined the National Register of Historic Places on November 29, 1972.
Ney named the studio Formosa, and after her death in 1907 Ella and Joseph B. Dibrell bought it to keep it as an art centre in her memory. Ella Dibrell and other women then formed the Texas Fine Arts Association, the body that created the museum. The building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 29 November 1972.
The museum closed to the public in December 2024 for renovation, including restoration of the original doors and windows, HVAC upgrades, roof repairs and a new pedestrian bridge over Waller Creek. Check the museum's website for reopening before planning a visit. Waller Creek cuts through the property, so the grounds are reached by the new bridge.
The museum is one of 40 sites in the Historic Artists' Homes and Studios program, and since the 2000s it has again shown contemporary art, with exhibitions centred on women and non-binary artists. Its grounds were replanted with wildflowers and prairie grasses to resemble the site in Ney's day.
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