Our City, Our Collection: Building the Museum's Lasting Legacy

Kirkpatrick Family Fund Series. Photo by Robin Dorner.

(Oklahoma City, OK) - In celebration of the extraordinary acquisitions that have made the Oklahoma City Museum of Art the premiere collecting institution in central Oklahoma, the exhibition Our City, Our Collection: Building the Museum's Lasting Legacy runs through August 28.

Our City, Our Collection tells the story of the Museum's history as a series of transformative gifts, bequests and acquisitions. Beginning with the Works Projects Administration's (WPA) donation of 28 works of art to Oklahoma City in 1942, Our City, Our Collection explores the Museum's rich permanent collection as one of the community's most important cultural assets.

"A great city deserves a great art museum," said OKCMOA President and CEO E. Michael Whittington. "Since before statehood, many people have been integral to the growth of what is now the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. We are indebted to our members, our donors, our visitors and our community for helping build the Museum into what it is today."

Included in the exhibition are some of the world's most significant artists: Georgia O'Keeffe, Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustave Courbet, Marcel Duchamp, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alexander Calder, John Singleton Copley, Andrew Wyeth, Roy Lichtenstein, Dale Chihuly and more.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art traces its roots to early statehood efforts by the Oklahoma Art League and Art Renaissance Club, organizations concerned with art education for a young city. Over time, more formal efforts began with a WPA Experimental Gallery. The Museum transitioned from a federally funded gallery to a private institution when it was incorporated in 1945.

The Museum today is the synthesis of two predecessors, the Oklahoma Art Center, itself an outgrowth of the WPA Experimental Gallery, and the Oklahoma Museum of Art. Although both institutions were committed to collecting, public programs and exhibitions, a depressed economy following the downturn in the energy industry during the 1980s challenged the city's ability to support two institutions and led to a merger in 1989. Museum leaders seized the opportunity to bring a new Oklahoma City Museum of Art to maturation as a single, financially secure entity.

After the 1989 merger, $40 million was raised to develop a permanent downtown location. Thanks to generous community donors and a $14.5 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the OKCMOA opened its doors downtown in 2002. The Museum's first exhibition in this new space, Chihuly: An Inaugural Exhibition, was so important to the city that it was subsequently purchased, thanks to numerous donations from the community. The Museum's collection of Chihuly glass remains one of the largest in the world.

Our City, Our Collection will be on view throughout the summer, including during the upcoming exhibition Matisse in His Time: Masterworks of Modernism from the Centre Pompidou, Paris. The Museum is one of only three international venues to host Matisse in His Time and is the only one outside Europe.

For Our City, Our Collection programming and events visit www.okcmoa.com