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Meadows Museum of Art
The Meadows Museum in Dallas,
Texas, is a division of the Southern Methodist University Meadow
School of the Arts, contains one of biggest and most complete
collection of Spanish art that is located outside of Spain, with
marvelous artworks that date from the 10th to the 20th century. This
incredible collection contains masterpieces created by many of the
world's best artists that include; Picasso, El Greco, Miro, Ribera,
Goya, Velazquez, Murillo and Sorolla. Features of the magnificent
collection include; impressionist landscapes, modernist
abstractions, monumental Baroque canvases, beautiful rococo oil
sketches, Renaissance altarpieces, polychrome wood sculptures, a
special array of sculptures by well known 20th century masters like;
Oldenburg, Rodin, Smith, Maillol, Moore and Giacometti, and an
excellent collection of the graphics of Goya. The University Art
Collection that is managed by the museum contains gorgeous works by
the finest artists of the area; William Lester, Frank Reaugh,
Alexandre Hogue, Jerry Bywaters and Otis Dozier. The Meadows opened
in 1965, with a wonderful collection of Spanish art and the
galleries for their subsequent exhibit were the gift of Algur Hurtle
Meadows, a Dallas businessman and founder of the General American
Oil Company of Texas to the Southern Methodist University. In the
1950s, Algur would often travel to Madrid on business, where he
would visit the Prado Museum and become inspired enough in the art
of Spain's Golden Age to purchase many artworks. He had collected
enough of his own works by 1962, that it would become the nucleus of
the museum's collection. After the museum had opened, some doubts
about the quality of the collection caused Algur to start another
newer type of collection from 1967 to 1978, that was added to the
nucleus. Ever since 1978, the museum has strived to increase and
preserve that collection with the excellent support of the Meadows
Foundation, which is a general purpose philanthropic organization
that was started and incorporated by Meadows in 1948. The
relationship between the two organizations has proved to be quite
fruitful, achieving a great atmosphere of conservation, important
acquisitions, especially in the genres of 20th century, Baroque and
medieval art, and support of scholarly research of the collection.
The museum is located in a neo-Palladian building with significant
naturally lit painting galleries and expansive display space, that
has been underwritten by the foundation. The museum owns the
complete first edition sets of Goya's four outstanding print series;
Los Caprichos, Los Desatres de la Guerra, Los Disparates and La
Tauromaquia. The Meadows also holds numerous prints by Picasso and
other well known artists. Since the works on paper are in such
fragile condition, they are not shown all the time, since light does
cause some problems with these marvelous works. There are shown for
a short duration, as long as the lighting is controlled, although
they are always available for study by scholars, artists and SMU
students. The Elizabeth Meadows Sculpture collection is one of the
legacies that was started by Algur in honor of his second wife, with
the collection growing by additions from the museum. A fantastic
huge sculpture called Wave, by Spanish architect and artist Santiago
Calatrava graces the front entrance, sitting above a black granite
reflecting pool, and is a kinetic sculpture of 129 steel bars coated
in bronze. The plaza that encompasses the museum contains many
sculptures by well known artists like Claes Oldenburg, David Smith
and Henry Moore plus the works of contemporary artists James Surls.
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