There is a persistent myth that says all museums are built by well-funded institutions, cash-rich cities or billionaire collectors. There are certainly museums that have started that way, but there are also a number of great institutions that have humble origins led by regular folks who simply shared a common interest. Such is the case with the Tucson Museum of Art.
Exterior of east side of Tucson Museum of Art, 1975. Photo courtesy of Tucson Museum of Art.
On March 20, 1924, the Tucson’s Woman’s Club and its art committee voted to establish the Tucson Fine Arts Association. Initial plans were modest: a lecture series, exhibitions featuring artists from Robert Henri to Maynard Dixon, and creative activities geared toward high school and university students. As the association grew, it eventually expanded to a historic house in central Tucson in 1955. By 1962, the location had a name: the Tucson Art Center. The groundbreaking on the present-day museum site took place in 1973, with the ribbon-cutting ceremony two years later in 1975. Today the Tucson Museum of Art hosts critically acclaimed exhibitions and programming year-round and is a beacon of fine art in Southern Arizona.
Tucson Museum of Art, building fund office, Hyram S. Stevens House, 1974. Photo by Bill Sears.
The museum, which is home to a beautiful collection of Western and Southwest art, will celebrate its century of fine art with the Centennial Gala on March 16. The event will mark the first 100 years of the museum, and also celebrate its very first collection piece, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s La Revue Blanche, an 1895 color lithograph on paper. The event will include a reception with cocktails, a dinner and live and silent auctions. The ticketed event will benefit the museum.
Aerial view, Tucson Museum of Art, construction site, 1974. Unidentified photographer. Photo courtesy of Tucson Museum of Art.
Additionally, the museum will present the exhibition Time Travelers: Foundations, Transformations, and Expansions at the Centennial, which will feature “original contexts and offers new interpretations of significant artworks collected by the museum over the past century, reconsidering their complex relationships to the past, present and future.”
The first donation of art to TMA’s collection was a color lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Revue Blanche, 1895, color lithograph on paper. Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants.
The museum notes: “This exhibition is organized by three guiding concepts: Foundations, Transformations and Expansions. Foundations includes early and significant acquisitions that formed the core of the museum’s collection, as well as works in which artists look in hindsight to historical precedents. Transformations features works that reveal an evolving relevance in the collection. Expansions presents new narratives, voices and perspectives. A series of related interpretative materials and programming will be planned to examine these ideas and artworks.”
The exhibition opens March 17 and continues through October 6. —
Centennial Gala
March 16, 2024, 5-9 p.m.
Tucson Museum of Art, 140 North Main Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85701
(520) 624-2333
www.tucsonmuseumofart.org
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