Georgia Museum of Art

The Georgia Museum of Art is the official art museum of the state of Georgia and the academic art museum of the University of Georgia (UGA), located in Athens, Georgia. Established in 1945 and opened to the public in 1948, it holds the dual distinction of serving both as a university teaching resource and, since 1982, as the state's official art museum. Its permanent collection numbers more than 17,000 works and continues to grow annually, encompassing American paintings, works on paper from America, Europe, and Asia, Italian Renaissance paintings, southern decorative arts, Asian art, and a significant body of work by African American artists.

The museum was founded in 1945 when Alfred Heber Holbrook, a New York jurist who had retired to Athens to study art, donated the Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial Collection of 100 American paintings to UGA in memory of his first wife. Holbrook served as the museum's founding director and remained in that role past his ninetieth birthday. The Georgia Museum opened to the public in 1948 on UGA's North Campus, initially in the basement of the university library, in a building that now houses the university president's office. In 1996, it relocated to the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the university's East Campus. A major expansion and renovation designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects of New York was completed in 2011, funded entirely through externally raised capital. Under subsequent directors, the museum developed extensive national and international partnerships, including exhibitions traveling to institutions such as the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and the Museo Nacional de San Carlos in Mexico City. The Friends of the Museum have supported the institution since the 1970s, now numbering over 1,200 members. In 2000, the museum established the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts, followed in 2002 by the Pierre Daura Center, dedicated to the Catalan-American artist Pierre Daura. The museum received the Exhibition Award of Excellence from the Southeastern Museum Conference in 2005 for "Classic Ground: Mid-19th Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter." A pivotal moment came in 2012 when Brenda and Larry Thompson donated 100 works by African American artists and endowed the position of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art, for which they were named Patrons of the Year by the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries.

The collection's foundation is American painting, primarily of the 19th and 20th centuries, but its scope extends considerably. It includes American, European, and Asian works on paper that rank among the most significant in the southeastern United States, encompassing old master drawings, French prints of the 1890s, and American prints and drawings of the early 20th century. The Samuel H. Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance paintings represents a long-standing partnership with the Kress Foundation, initiated at the museum's founding and marked by the 50th-anniversary Kress Project launched in 2010. The museum maintains growing collections of southern decorative arts and Asian art, and has developed particular strength in works by African American artists, substantially enhanced by the Thompson donation. The collection as a whole now approaches approximately 18,000 objects, with active acquisitions continuing into the 21st century.

The original Holbrook donation established the core of the American painting collection with works by Frank Weston Benson, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keeffe, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence, John Singer Sargent, and Theodore Robinson. The 19th-century holdings expanded to include George Cooke, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Eakins, George Inness, Elizabeth Jane Gardner, James McNeill Whistler, and Frederick Frieseke. The early 20th-century collection features significant works by Reginald Marsh, Ben Shahn, and Andrew Wyeth, while later 20th-century acquisitions include Charles Burchfield, Alice Neel, Helen Frankenthaler, and Elaine de Kooning. The Samuel H. Kress Study Collection provides Italian Renaissance paintings. The 100-work Thompson donation significantly strengthened the museum's holdings in African American art.

The museum occupies a purpose-built facility within the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on UGA's East Campus, which it entered in April 1996. The complex also houses the School of Music, the Performing Arts Center, and the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The 2011 expansion and renovation by Gluckman Mayner Architects transformed the building into a 76,000-square-foot facility comprising twelve galleries for the permanent collection, an outdoor sculpture garden, expanded lobby space, galleries for temporary exhibitions, and classrooms. This renovation, funded entirely with externally raised money, enabled the museum to display its permanent collection on a continuous basis for the first time.

The Georgia Museum of Art is located in Athens, Georgia, on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. As both the university's academic museum and the official state art museum since 1982, it serves a dual public and educational mission. The museum organizes its own exhibitions, creates traveling exhibitions for other institutions, and hosts traveling exhibitions from elsewhere. Its programming is supported by the Friends of the Museum, whose members participate in benefit events, exhibition openings, and educational programs. The museum's website is https://georgiamuseum.org/.