The Taubman Museum of Art, formerly the Art Museum of Western Virginia, is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily co ...

downtown Roanoke Downtown is the central business district of Roanoke, Virginia, United States. Located geographically at the center of the city, Downtown began its development with the completion of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad in 1882. Today the Downtown c ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, United States. It was designed by architect

Randall Stout Randall Paul Stout (May 6, 1958 – July 11, 2014) was a Los Angeles, California based architect. Early life and education Born and raised in Tennessee, Stout held a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee and a Master of ...

History

In 1947, the Roanoke chapter of the

American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...

requested a major exhibition from the

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the ...

, which moved part of its staff and permanent collection to The Hotel Roanoke for a period of time. In 1951, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center was incorporated as an independent organization. Between 1952 and 1954, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center used the City of Roanoke's Library to exhibit an Allen Ingles Palmer retrospective and other exhibitions. The Roanoke Fine Arts Center opened offices and studios at 715 Franklin Road in Roanoke in 1954. A year later, in 1955, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center moved into a new facility at the corner of 25th Street and Carolina Avenue in South Roanoke. The building was donated by Mr. and Mrs. J. Meade Harris. In 1965, Anne Funkhouser Francis donated her family estate, Cherry Hill, to the Roanoke Fine Arts Center and to the Junior League. The first exhibition at Cherry Hill was of works by

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

, borrowed from his Roanoke relatives. From 1965 to 1976, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center exhibited the works of regional artists, as well as works by such nationally recognized figures as

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

and

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

. A permanent collection began to develop with gifts of art from local collectors and the City of Roanoke. In 1976, the Roanoke Fine Arts Center received full accreditation from the

American Association of Museums American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1983, renamed the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts, the museum relocated to Center in the Square on Market Square in downtown Roanoke. The new location, larger in size and with more gallery space for the permanent collection, opened the museum to new and broader audiences from across the region. In 2001 the museum received the long-promised Peggy Macdowell Thomas bequest, which included 27 works associated with major American artist Thomas Eakins and his circle and funds to support a named gallery; in 2007 Mrs. Thomas’ house and its contents also came to the museum, providing further artwork and financial support. In 2002, the Art Museum announced that

had been selected as design architect for the Art Museum's new facility. On March 21, 2005, the Art Museum unveiled the design for its new 81,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in downtown Roanoke. Construction of the new facility began in May 2006. On February 6, 2008, the Board of Trustees of the institution announced that the new building was to be named in honor of the former CEO of

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and later the U.S. Ambassador to

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, Nicholas F. Taubman, and Mrs. Eugenia L. Taubman in recognition of their lead gift to the capital campaign. Museum staff moved into the Taubman Museum of Art on September 8, 2008. The Taubman Museum of Art opened to the public on November 8, 2008. The Fralin Center for American Art consists of ten galleries that house special exhibitions as well as its renowned permanent collection. The center is named in honor of Horace G. and Ann H. Fralin. The City of Roanoke Atrium is a 1,600 square feet space used for large installations. The museum maintains three galleries devoted to the display and discussion of works from the permanent collection. The galleries change their content to ensure that a broad and diverse array of artwork created by internationally respected artists is continually accessible to the public, with 15–20 rotations per year. Art Venture, adjacent to the atrium, is a 2,436 square foot interactive gallery space that contains 13 discovery centers for children and families.

Collection and exhibitions

The permanent collection of more than 2,000 works of art includes prominent 19th- and early 20th-century American art, as well as significant modern and contemporary art, photography, design, and decorative arts, and several smaller collections including Southern folk art. The American art collection dates from the mid-19th through the second quarter of the 20th century, providing exemplary works from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

American Realism American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...

American Impressionism American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose ...

, and

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

art movements; works by self-taught artists are a small but important subsection to this collection. American artists include

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

Childe Hassam Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...

Maurice Prendergast Maurice Brazil Prendergast (October 10, 1858 – February 1, 1924) was an American artist who painted in oil and watercolor, and created monotypes. His delicate landscapes and scenes of modern life, characterized by mosaic-like color, are ...

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the ...

George Inness George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...

, Eduard Steichen, and Thomas Hart Benton. The modern and contemporary collection includes works by

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ac ...

Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...

Audrey Flack Audrey L. Flack (born May 30, 1931) is an American artist. Her work pioneered the art genre of photorealism and encompasses painting, sculpture, and photography. Flack has numerous academic degrees, including both a graduate and an honorary doct ...

, and

Dorothy Gillespie Dorothy Gillespie (1920–2012) was an American artist and sculptor who became known for her large and colorful abstract metal sculptures. Her works are featured at her alma mater (Radford University) in Virginia, where she later returned to tea ...

Gallery

File:Susan Macdowell Eakins, Gentleman and a Dog, 1878.jpg, ''Gentleman and a Dog'' (1878) by Susan Macdowell Eakins File:Susan Macdowell Eakins, Two Sisters, 1879.jpg, ''Two Sisters (Mary & Elizabeth Macdowell)'' (1879) by Susan Macdowell Eakins File:William H. Macdowell G260.jpg, ''William H. Macdowell'' (1891) by Thomas Eakins File:Alfred Reynolds G359.jpg, ''Alfred Reynolds'' (1902) by Thomas Eakins File:Walter MacDowell G417.jpg, ''Walter Macdowell'' (1904) by Thomas Eakins File:Happy Days Edward Henry Potthast.jpeg, ''Happy Days'' (c. 1910-20) by Edward Henry Potthast

References

External links

Taubman Museum of Art official website
{{authority control 1951 establishments in Virginia Art museums established in 1951 Museums in Roanoke, Virginia Art museums and galleries in Virginia Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums of American art Postmodern architecture in the United States