Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Art museum at University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, United States.
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, holding paintings, ceramics, Native American works, and contemporary Asian art. The building has two main sections, the original structure and the Stuart Wing added in 2011, which together give the collection room to breathe.
The museum was founded in 1936 under the name Oklahoma University Museum of Art and moved into a dedicated building in 1971 as the collection grew. The Stuart Wing, opened in 2011, marked the most recent major change to the building.
The museum's name honours Fred Jones Jr., an OU student who died in a 1950 plane crash; his parents funded the 1971 building. The Asian art section dates from 1936, when Louis Hanies Wentz and photographer Richard Gorden Matzene gave 758 objects, including Gandhara sculptures and Persian miniatures. George C. McGhee, later US ambassador to Turkey and West Germany, donated the 16th- to 19th-century Orthodox icons.
The museum sits on the university campus and is easy to reach on foot from the central areas of the grounds. Allow enough time for a full visit, as the collection covers a wide range of periods and traditions.
The Weitzenhoffer Collection, acquired by the museum in 2000, brought works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Vincent van Gogh to Norman through a private donation. It is one of the largest groups of French Impressionist paintings held by a museum outside of a major city.
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