Weisman Art Museum

The Weisman Art Museum is an art museum located at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934, it serves as a teaching museum for the university, dedicated to creating art experiences that spark discovery, critical thinking, and transformation. The museum is widely recognized as a modern art museum and holds a collection of approximately 30,000 works. It is situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and has been housed since 1993 in a building designed by architect Frank Gehry, renamed in honor of Minneapolis native, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Frederick R. Weisman.

The institution originated in 1934 as the University Gallery, realizing a vision articulated by University President Lotus Coffman, who set aside unused rooms in the newly completed Northrop Auditorium to instill sustaining values through the arts. Hudson D. Walker served as the museum's first curator. Upon his death, the collection of American art he shared with his wife, Ione, was donated to the museum. The gallery was also known as the University Art Museum during its tenure in Northrop. In 1993, the museum moved into its current building and was renamed the Weisman Art Museum in honor of Frederick R. Weisman, whose financial gifts and support funded the new facility. A major addition to the building, also designed by Frank Gehry, was completed in 2011.

The museum's collection contains approximately 30,000 works in various media, including painting, sculpture, prints, photography, ceramics, and video. American art constitutes a prominent holding of approximately 20,000 works, featuring an internationally significant collection from the first half of the twentieth century. Works on paper, such as drawings, watercolors, prints, and photographs, make up roughly two-thirds of the overall collection. The museum also holds a rich ceramics collection of approximately 2,000 objects, including Upper Midwest studio pottery, and a premier collection of traditional Korean furniture and decorative objects.

Signature holdings include the world's largest collections of works by Marsden Hartley, Alfred H. Maurer, and B.J.O. Nordfeldt, as well as significant works by Charles Biederman. The American collection also features pieces by early twentieth-century artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Romare Bearden. The Korean collection is unmatched in the United States and perhaps unrivaled outside Asia, comprising about 200 examples of Choson dynasty furniture, 80 Silla dynasty stoneware pieces, 150 folk paintings, and other folk arts and crafts. The majority of the Korean collection came as a 1988 bequest from Dr. Edward Reynolds Wright Jr. The museum additionally holds Native American Mimbres pottery.

The current museum building was designed by Frank Gehry, with MSR Design as architect of record, and completed in November 1993. It is situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River at the east end of the Washington Avenue Bridge. The abstract structure is considered highly significant as it was built prior to the widespread use of computer aided design in architecture. The building presents two distinct faces. To the south and east, it features a brick facade that blends with the historic buildings along Northrop Mall. To the north and west, facing the river, it presents an abstraction of a fish and waterfall in curving and angular brushed steel sheets. The stainless steel skin was fabricated and installed by the A. Zahner Company. HGA Architects and Engineers served as local consultants for the 2011 Gehry-designed addition.

The Weisman Art Museum is located at 333 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455, on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. As a university art museum, it focuses on creating inclusive arts experiences that link the university and the broader community. Education remains central to its mission, supported by interdisciplinary collaborations with university departments and an active touring program serving rural communities in the Upper Midwest. The museum features dedicated spaces like the Edith Carlson Gallery for light-sensitive works on paper and the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration. Admission to the museum is free for all visitors.