Art Museum

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Houston, United States

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is an art museum in Houston, United States. 652 works from its collection are in this catalog, including Thomas Eakins and Paolo Veronese.

About Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is the oldest art museum in Texas. In 1917, the museum site was dedicated by the Houston Public School Art League (later the Houston Art League) with the intention of becoming a public art museum. The first museum building was opened to the public in 1924.The original building, designed by Houston architect William Ward Watkin in the Greek Neoclassical style, is the first art museum built in Texas.

Overview & Identity

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) stands as the oldest art museum in Texas and one of the largest in the United States. Established with the mission to connect Houston's diverse communities with the breadth of human creativity, the institution serves as a welcoming and inclusive space for art appreciation. By gallery space, it ranks as the ninth-largest museum in the world, housing a permanent collection of nearly 80,000 works of art across more than 300,000 square feet.

The museum's encyclopedic scope spans over 5,000 years of culture, reflecting the international diversity and dynamism of the city of Houston.

History & Founding

The museum's origins trace back to 1900, when a women's volunteer organization began sharing art reproductions with school children in Houston. This initiative evolved into an aspiration to collect original works and establish a public museum. Land was acquired at the intersection of Main Street and Montrose Boulevard, and the first iteration of the museum opened in 1924.

The original building featured an inscription over the door reading, "ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE USE OF THE PEOPLE," and initially held a collection of just 60 works. The site was dedicated in 1917 by the Houston Public School Art League, which later became the Houston Art League.

Building & Architecture

The MFAH's 14-acre campus features three primary buildings for the display of art, each representing distinct architectural eras. The original structure, opened in 1924, was later renamed the Caroline Wiess Law Building in 1998. The Audrey Jones Beck Building, designed by renowned architect Rafael Moneo, opened in 2000 and significantly expanded the museum's capacity for 20th-century art.

The most recent addition is the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, which opened in 2020, providing approximately 150,000 square feet of space for modern and contemporary works. The campus also includes the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, the Glassell School of Art, and the Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza.

Collection Highlights & Notable Holdings

The MFAH's collection of nearly 80,000 pieces is particularly strong in Italian Renaissance painting, Baroque painting, French Impressionism, and photography. Significant holdings also include American and European decorative arts, African and pre-Columbian gold, and post-1945 European and American painting and sculpture. The museum established the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) in 2001, becoming a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art.

Other facets of the collection include African-American art, Texas painting, Asian and Islamic art, Judaica, costumes, and textiles. The collection has been bolstered by major bequests, such as the 1944 gift of eighty-three works from the Caroline Wiess Law family.