The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), located in the Houston Museum District, Houston, is one of the largest museums in the United States. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 64,000 works from six continents.

Established in 1900, the MFAH is the largest cultural institution in the region. The majority of the museum’s presentations take place on its main campus, which is located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District and comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Glassell School of Art and the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. The Beck and Law buildings are connected underground by the Wilson Tunnel, which features James Turrell’s iconic installation The Light Inside (1999). Additional resources include a repertory cinema, two significant libraries, public archives and a state-of-the-art conservation and storage facility. Nearby, two remarkable house museums, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and Rienzi, present collections of American and European decorative arts. The encyclopedic collections of the MFAH are especially strong in pre-Columbian and African gold; Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture; 19th- and 20th-century art; photography; and Latin American art. The MFAH is also home to the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art.

With more than 62,000 works of art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has the largest and most diverse art collection in the Southwestern United States. The majority of the museum’s collection lie in the areas of Italian Renaissance painting, French Impressionism, photography, American and European decorative arts, African and pre-Columbian gold, American art, and post-1945 European and American painting and sculpture. Other facets of the collection include African-American art and Texas painting. Emerging collection interests of modern and contemporary Latin American art, Asian art, and Islamic art continue to strengthen the museum’s collection diversity. As a result of its encyclopedic collection, the museum ranks nationally among the top ten art museums in attendance.

The museum benefits the Houston community through programs, publications and media presentations. Each year, 1.25 million people benefit from museum’s programs, workshops and resource centers. Of that total, more than 500,000 people participate in the community outreach programs.

History:
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 – opened to the public in 1924 – represented the determination of Houstonians to transform their growing city into a rich cultural center. Trustees and staff dedicated the small art collection to the community and defined the function of the museum as bringing “art into the everyday life” of all Houstonians. Today the MFAH encompasses two buildings, the Caroline Wiess Law and Audrey Jones Beck buildings, that house its primary collections and temporary exhibitions; two decorative arts house museums; The Glassell studio art school; a sculpture garden; a state-of-the-art facility for conservation, storage and archives; and an administrative building with the Glassell Junior school of Art

Prior to the opening of the permanent museum building in 1924, George M. Dickson bequeathed to the collection its first important American and European oil paintings. In the 1930s, Houstonian Annette Finnigan began her donation of antiquities and Texas philanthropist Ima Hogg gave her collection of avant-garde European prints and drawings. Ima Hogg’s gift was followed by the subsequent donations of her Southwest Native American and Frederic Remington collections during the 1940s. The same decade witnessed the 1944 bequest of eighty-three Renaissance paintings, sculptures and works on paper from renowned New York collectors Edith and Percy Straus. Over the next two decades, gifts from prominent Houston families and foundations concentrated on European art from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries, contemporary painting and sculpture, and African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art. Among these are the gifts of Life Trustees Sarah Campbell Blaffer, Dominique de Menil and Alice N. Hanzsen as well as that of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Augmented by museum purchases, the permanent collection numbered 12,000 objects by 1970.

The MFAH collection nearly doubled from 1970 to 1989, fueled by continued donations of art along with the advent of both accession endowment funding and corporate giving. In 1974, John and Audrey Jones Beck placed on long-term loan fifty Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces, augmenting the museum’s already strong Impressionist collection. This collection would never leave the MFAH, formally entering its holdings in 1998 as a gift of Life Trustee Audrey Jones Beck. The collection is permanently displayed in the building that bears her name. On the heels of the Cullen Foundation’s funding of the MFAH’s first accessions endowment in 1970, the Brown Foundation, Inc., launched a challenge grant in 1976 that would stay in effect for twenty years raising funds for both accessions and operational costs in landmark amounts and providing incentive for additional community support. Also in 1976, the photography collection was established with Target Stores’ first corporate grant to the museum. Today the museum is the sixth-largest in the country.

Collection:
At the MFAH, dedicated curatorial departments are responsible for specific areas of the art collections and related exhibitions. Click the boxes below to find out more about each department’s mission and programs.

Works from the MFAH collections fill the galleries year-round with art embracing every era of history across the globe. Take advantage of the ever-changing calendar of events brimming with activities for all ages throughout the Museum, including the Glassell School of Art and our two house museums: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and Rienzi.

Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas:
The art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America—including the Glassell Collections of African, Indonesian, and Pre-Columbian Gold—are overseen by a single curatorial department at the MFAH.

Arts of Africa
“African” describes art from the diverse continent of Africa from 500 BC to the present. The Museum’s African art collection features masks, sculptures, headdresses, textiles, and objects from a variety of regions, cultures, and countries. Masterpieces include a refined cast-metal head of a king from the Court of Benin, and a Fang culture reliquary figure that inspired early-20th-century artists. Many artworks were created to reinforce the rank and prestige of rulers, or to indicate status. Others honor ancestors. The African galleries of the MFAH were expanded and redesigned in 2010 and 2015.

Arts of Oceania
“Oceanic” refers to native cultures of Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific islands. The ocean has shaped these peoples and their art. Many works were fashioned from wood and plant fibers like reeds, and adorned with paint, feathers, and shells. Precious objects were also carved from stone. These peoples believed the universe was governed by invisible natural forces appeased by ritual and art. Ancestors were revered. The artworks in the Museum’s collection of Oceanic art are distinguished by visually potent designs.

Pre-Columbian Art
“Pre-Columbian” describes the cultures that lived in Central and South America before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Pre-Columbian art consists of two main regions: Mesoamerica—which includes Mexico and Central America—and South America. Over a period of more than 3,000 years kingdoms and empires rose and fell, leaving ruins and great works of art. Olmec jade, Maya stone sculpture, Nasca and Paracas textiles, and fine Moché ceramics are among the extraordinary artworks in the MFAH collection. In 2009, the Museum opened new, expanded Pre-Columbian art galleries.

Native American Art
“Native American” describes the art of the diverse cultures of North America. The collection includes ceramics, kachina dolls, watercolors, textiles, baskets, masks, and silver jewelry dating from 2000 BC to the 1950s. The collection includes works from the Apache, Kwakwaka’wakw, and Tlingit cultures. Artworks of the Pueblo cultures of northern Arizona and New Mexico given by Houston philanthropist Ima Hogg are the collection’s strength. In 2015, the MFAH redesigned the Native American gallery.

American Painting & Sculpture:
The Museum’s collection of American art presents a lively overview of the story of art in the United States from the 18th century to 1940. The evolving American galleries showcase celebrated works from many periods, with highlights such as Frederic Church’s Cotopaxi and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow.

The collection of 18th-century paintings, housed primarily at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, features an exquisite array of works from the Colonial and Federal periods. The collection comprises excellent examples by America’s great early artists, including John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and Benjamin West.

A particular strength of the American collection is the small but choice group of 19th-century landscape paintings in the Hudson River School tradition, with major works by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole. Mid-19th-century American art is also well represented, with genre scenes and still-life paintings by artists such as Charles Deas, Eastman Johnson, and Severin Roesen. Key works of the late 19th century, by Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Frederic Remington, John Singer Sargent, and others, show the range and vitality of American art as it continued to grow in stature on the world stage.

The 20th-century holdings include important paintings by George Bellows and Robert Henri, and the earliest Abstract movement in American art—Synchromism—is represented in key works by Patrick Henry Bruce, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and Morgan Russell. Another area of strength is the work of E. Martin Hennings and Walter Ufer, members of the Taos Society Artists. Artists of the Alfred Stieglitz group include Elsie Driggs, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Helen Torr. The collection also features the work of Stuart Davis, and 1930s paintings with societal themes by Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry.

The collection of American sculpture complements the paintings. Highlights include Elie Nadelman’s Tango; 19th-century classical marbles by Hiram Powers and William Henry Rinehart; Beaux Arts bronzes by Frederick William MacMonnies; welded metal works by David Smith; and a limestone sculpture by self-taught artist William Edmondson.

Antiquities
Art of the ancient world provides an introduction to the styles and subjects found in the art of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East. The antiquities collection began with donations from Houston native Annette Finnigan in 1931. An avid traveler, businesswoman, suffragette, and art collector, she donated almost 200 works of ancient art to the Museum during her lifetime.

Since those early days, the collection has grown significantly to include more than 450 artworks and masterpieces, such as a Hellenistic Greek bronze head, an Egyptian coffin, and a Roman statue of Dionysus.

Art of the ancient world greets MFAH visitors in the atriums of the Audrey Jones Beck Building. Glowing with natural light, works from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East include a gold myrtle wreath, a lama deity, a magnificent bronze head of a god or hero, and a monumental bronze sculpture of a Roman ruler. Among the objects from ancient Egypt are a spectacular coffin of the priest Pedi-Osiris and a rare sculpture of the god Thoth as an ibis.

Arts of Asia
The Museum’s collections of Asian art span nearly five millennia and encompass the cultures of China, the Himalayas, India, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

In 2007, the Museum launched an initiative to create dedicated galleries for the collection, beginning with a gallery for the arts of Korea. Galleries for the arts of India, China, and Japan followed in 2009, 2010, and 2012 respectively. Houston’s Asian communities, as well as international museum and foundation partners, generously supported the construction of the galleries and purchased of works of art.

Since 2007, the novel installation of ancient, modern, and contemporary objects in the same room has engaged visitors in a dialogue that conveys transnational and global narratives within the ancient and modern worlds. The display of fragile textiles, lacquers, and works on paper changes approximately every three months, allowing the Asian art department to create focused installations and to showcase more works from the collection.

Arts of Asia also includes contemporary art, collected by the museum across many collecting areas. ► Browse all of the Museum’s contemporary artworks.

This collecting department illuminates the specificity and diversity of form, iconography, and techniques in the Asian continent that result from local and global transmission of ideas, religion, and philosophies such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Taoism. Learn more about this collection below.

Decorative Arts, Craft & Design
The collection of decorative arts, craft, and design focuses on works of extraordinary craftsmanship and originality made from the 17th century to the 21st. The diversity of design is shown through both handcrafted and industrially produced objects. The department collects all the major design movements—19th-century Revivalist, Aesthetic, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, the Bauhaus, Scandinavian Modern, studio craft, Postmodernism—and continues with objects made just yesterday. The collection is particularly known for late-19th-century American works by the Herter Brothers and Louis Comfort Tiffany as well as objects designed by architects.

In 1997, the decorative arts department began focusing its efforts on objects made after 1900. This move included a new emphasis on craft and design, and the MFAH is now considered one of the leading American collecting institutions in these fields. The works of modern and contemporary decorative arts are international in scope and include furniture, tableware, jewelry, and objects made from wood, ceramics, glass, metal, textiles/fiber, plastics, and other materials. Of particular note are the studio-craft holdings exemplified by the Helen Williams Drutt Collection of jewelry and the Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection of ceramics.

European Art
The collection of European art comprises important paintings and sculpture from the 13th to early 20th century. The expansive galleries present ivories and sculpture from the late Middle Ages; panel paintings and bronzes from the Renaissance; and paintings and sculpture from the 17th to 19th centuries.

The Museum began to build a collection of Old Master and 19th-century paintings as early as the 1920s and 1930s, and local interest in European art soon grew dramatically. Generous gifts of private collections in the next two decades were instrumental, and in the 1970s increased acquisition funds allowed the Museum to focus on individual works of great quality.

Collecting Areas
Among the Renaissance highlights are Italian works by Fra Angelico and Sebastiano del Piombo, and Flemish masterpieces by Hans Memling and Rogier van der Weyden. Notable paintings of the Baroque period include examples by Orazio Gentileschi, Jan van Huysum, and Rembrandt.

The 18th- and 19th-century galleries feature paintings by Canaletto, Jean-Siméon Chardin, Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Francisco de Goya, and Théodore Rousseau. On long-term loan from private collections are 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works as well as Italian Renaissance and Baroque paintings.

Film
The department of film and video exhibits and promotes the medium of film as a fine and popular art. To fulfill this mission, the department’s primary goals are to introduce and/or expose the broadest possible audience to the genius of the moving image; to deliver state-of-the-art presentation; to respond to an evolving medium; to stimulate communication and/or dialogue through the shared experience of watching films and video on a big screen; and to inspire the next generation to value film and other screen arts. Learn more below, and visit mfah.org/film to see the film schedule.

Art of the Islamic Worlds
The Museum’s collection of art of the Islamic worlds encompasses the diverse artistic traditions of Islamic lands. The long-term goal is to reflect the regional, chronological, and material diversity of these traditions from the earliest period to the present day.

In 2007, the Museum launched the Art of the Islamic Worlds Initiative, making a commitment to collect, exhibit, and interpret art from the Islamic worlds. The focused collection continues to develop, with an emphasis on quality and rarity. In addition, the Museum presents thematic exhibitions and a wide range of related public programs and lectures.

In 2013, the Museum embarked on a landmark partnership with the Kuwait-based cultural institution Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah (DAI) and the privately held al-Sabah Collection, one of the greatest collections of Islamic art in the world. The debut presentation at the MFAH featured 67 objects ranging from carpets and architectural fragments to exquisite ceramics, metalwork, jewelry, scientific instruments, and manuscripts.

In 2015, an expanded installation more than tripled the display, presenting a comprehensive range of Islamic art. At the same time, two new galleries dedicated to the Museum’s collection opened, reinforcing the MFAH as a premier location for the exhibition and interpretation of art of the Islamic worlds.

Starting in the 7th century, the religion of Islam expanded from the Arabian Peninsula over a large territory stretching from Spain to Southeast Asia. The Museum’s collection includes examples of sacred and secular art. Many of the objects demonstrate the exchange of decorative motifs such as geometric patterns or vegetal motifs, and the importance of the art of the word. Among the most significant acquisitions have been a 12th-century bronze incense burner from Iran in the form of a stylized feline figure; a superb, elaborately illuminated 14th-century Qur’an from Morocco; and a remarkable, early-16th-century tondino made in Iznik, Turkey, then the center of production for one of the most distinctive types of ceramics in the Islamic world.

Latin American Art
The mission of the Latin American art department and its research institute, the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), is to collect, exhibit, research, and educate the public about the diverse artistic production of Latin Americans and Latinos. Established in 2001, the department and the ICAA endeavor to open new avenues of intercultural dialogue through exhibitions, research, and publishing. The department has built a core collection of modern and contemporary art with more than 550 emblematic works in all media, from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, as well as by Latino artists in the United States. These objects complement existing holdings in photography, works on paper, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture, some of which entered the Museum as early as the 1930s. The total number of works of art by Latin Americans and Latinos at the MFAH surpasses 2,000.

The Museum is home to some of the finest examples of work by early-20th-century masters from Latin America, such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Maria Martins, Roberto Matta, Armando Reverón, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Xul Solar, and Joaquín Torres-García. The strength of the Latin American art holdings, however, lies in post–World War II artists and movements. At least three conceptual and/or stylistic nuclei are foundational to the collection: Concrete and Constructive art from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela; 1960s Neo-Figurative and Pop art tendencies; and contemporary art and new media. Concrete and Constructive art holdings include masterworks by artists of Argentina’s Madí group (Gyula Kosice, Carmelo Arden Quin, Rhod Rothfuss); the School of the South (Julio Alpuy, Gonzalo Fonseca, José Gurvich, Francisco Matto); Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt); and a large ensemble of light-, water-, and viewer-activated Kinetic works by Paris-based Latin American artists (Antonio Asís, Marta Boto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Julio Le Parc, García Rossi, Jesús Rafael Soto, Luis Tomasello, Gregorio Vardanega). The iconoclastic production of the 1960s, in turn, is represented with experimental sculpture and painting by innovators from Argentina (Luis Benedit, Antonio Berni, Juan Carlos Distéfano, León Ferrari, Víctor Grippo, Alberto Heredia, Luis Felipe Noé) and Colombia (Beatriz González). In contemporary art and new media, the Museum has pursued a vast array of large-scale sculptures and installations by cutting-edge artists (Tania Bruguera, María Fernanda Cardoso, Los Carpinteros, Carmela Gross, Alfredo Jaar, Guillermo Kuitca, Teresa Margolles, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Cildo Meireles, Gabriel de la Mora, Oscar Muñoz, Liliana Porter, Miguel Angel Ríos, Regina Silveira, Carlos Runcie Tanaka, Javier Téllez, Tunga).

Modern & Contemporary Art
From the first annual exhibitions of local artists to the current explorations of art from across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, building a comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary art has always been central to the mission of the MFAH. The Museum collects contemporary artwork across many collecting areas. ► Browse all of the Museum’s contemporary artworks.

The collecting department of modern and contemporary art has grown to more than 1,400 objects spanning six continents.

Major figures in the evolution Modern and Contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on the progress of abstraction, are represented across the 20th century and into the 21st. This segment of the Museum’s collection begins with foundational works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger from the Cubist years, with additional masterpieces by Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, and Lionel Feininger representing the wider range of early European Modernism.

The Surrealist era is introduced with works by Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, and Yves Tanguy. Works by painters and sculptors of the New York School have been collected in exceptional depth, with outstanding examples by Adolph Gottlieb, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and David Smith, among others. Color Field painting is also a particular focus of the collection, with notable works by Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland. The complementary currents of Pop Art and Minimalism are introduced with works by Lee Bontecou, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol and by Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Frank Stella.

Postwar European artists in the collection range from Pierre Alechinsky, Anthony Caro, Niki de Saint-Phalle, and Jean Tinguely to Rebecca Horn, Anselm Kiefer, Giuseppe Penone, and Gerhard Richter. Collecting in the new millennium has opened up new avenues of exploration, from the light-based works of James Turrell, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Bill Viola to artists who challenge accepted art-historical narratives, including Nan Goldin, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Do Ho Suh, and Fred Wilson. The Museum also collects the work of artists who have made Texas their home, from Forrest Bess to Mark Flood. Special emphasis is given to artists who have participated in the Core Fellowship Program of the Museum’s Glassell School, including Trenton Doyle Hancock, Julie Mehretu, and Clarissa Tossin.

Photography
The Museum’s photography collection comprises more than 30,000 items spanning the full history of the medium, from invention to present day. The photography collection also includes contemporary art, collected by the museum across many areas.

More than 4,000 photographers are represented in the photography collection. The department displays highlights of the collection on a rotating basis in A History of Photography: Selections from the Museum’s Collection as well as in temporary installations and special exhibitions. Visitors may also view photographs from the collection by appointment in the Works on Paper Study Center.

Prints & Drawings
The prints and drawings department is the keeper of the Museum’s encyclopedic collection of works of art on paper from the Middle Ages through the 21st century, including prints, drawings, watercolors, pastels, paintings on paper, artist books, and printmaking matrices. This department also includes contemporary art, collected by the Museum across many collecting areas.

The department’s early works are chiefly European. Starting with the second half of the 19th century, the collection becomes more balanced between European and American works on paper. The strong collection of Old Master prints includes 100 early German woodcuts and engravings, 50 of which are by Albrecht Dürer; and prints by Jacques Bellange and Rembrandt. Rare impressions include works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Canaletto, and Camille Pissarro; the deluxe edition of Max Klinger’s portfolio A Love; and an early impression of Edvard Munch’s 1895 Self-Portrait. The substantial American print collection comprises 1,500 wood engravings by Winslow Homer, Thomas Nast, and Frederic Remington. The core of the contemporary print collection is a large group of works made by American and European artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Enzo Cucchi, Eric Fischl, David Rabinowitch, and James Turrell.

Master drawings from the 16th century to the present include exceptional examples by Edgar Degas, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Paul Klee, Adolphe Menzel, Pablo Picasso, and Odilon Redon. In the mid-1990s, the Museum began acquiring significant drawings by Abstract Expressionist painters, including William Baziotes, James Brooks, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Richard Pousette-Dart. Another focus is drawings by 20th-century sculptors, among them Aristide Maillol and David Smith. The Museum has also acquired major works on paper by Jasper Johns.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston are honored to highlight the rich cultural heritage of Iranian civilization in Bestowing Beauty.