Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Art museum in Montgomery, Alabama, US.
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts occupies a building designed by the Montgomery firm Barganier, Davis and Sims, opened in 1988 in Blount Cultural Park with an addition completed in 1993. Its galleries hold 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and sculpture, Southern regional art, Old Master prints and decorative arts, plus Artworks, a participatory gallery and studio for children.
Founded in 1930 as the Alabama Society of Fine Arts by local artists and supporters, the museum was first housed in the old Lawrence Street School building. It moved in 1959 to share quarters with the City-County Public Library, was taken over by the city in 1960, and in 1971 refocused its collection on artworks. Since 1983 Montgomery County has shared costs, and the current building in Blount Cultural Park opened on 18 September 1988.
The museum's name recalls its 1930 founding as the Alabama Society of Fine Arts, and its collection is divided into three departments: American art, Old Master prints and decorative arts. The Blount Collection of American Art, forty-one paintings given by Winton M. Blount, includes works by John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer. The print holdings, based on a gift from Adolph Weil Jr., range from the 15th to the 19th century and include Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Canaletto, Francisco de Goya and James McNeill Whistler, alongside Rembrandt prints and Chinese porcelain and European glass.
The galleries are arranged to allow visitors to focus on specific interests or explore all collections at their own pace. Benches and seating areas are positioned throughout to provide resting spots while viewing the displays.
The John and Joyce Caddell Sculpture Garden opened in 2018 on three acres of the adjoining Blount Cultural Park, and it hosts traveling exhibitions from around the world. Its permanent pieces include Deborah Butterfield's bronze horse Isbelle (2001), Patrick Dougherty's stickwork Rough and Tumble (2020) and Joe Minter's assemblages such as The Sweat of the Mule and the Sharecropper.
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