The Cardsharps,
by Caravaggio, c1595
Kimbell Art Museum
Portrait of May Sartoris,
by Frederic Leighton, c1860
Kimbell Art Museum
In 1965 the first director Richard Brown and the Foundation began planning for the future Kimbell museum, a small museum of supreme quality. So the Directors outlined the museum’s programme. The founders' collection was based on European and English 18th and C19th paintings. They asked that later curators expand the museum’s range, focusing on high quality, rather than limiting art to any one genre, era or region. They wanted to acquire individual works of the highest possible power. The 1966 policy discussed encompassing World History.
Why did the directors choose Louis Kahn? His buildings had massive structures which s their weight, materials and construction methods. His raw materials eg concrete and brick combined with his focus on the play of light and shadow, giving his works a powerful presence. The Kimbell Art Museum's Louis Kahn Building was a special architectural achievement. Opened in 1972, Kahn did modern architecture with light as the theme. 142’ overhead the oculus was atop the dome, a circular opening with a 27’ diameter. Natural light enters through narrow plexiglass skylights that runs the length of the gallery ceilings over the barrel vaults, the light diffused by silvery aluminium reflectors.
While there is a street entrance on the first floor, the proper entrance is the Kimbell Art Museum’s stunning facade, which leads directly into the 2nd-floor galleries. This main west facade has 3 100’ bays, each fronted by an open, barrel-vaulted entrance bay; portico, with the glazed central these light-filled spaces are the key feature of the interior, behind each of the side porticos. And 3 courtyards intersperse the interior space. Though modern in having no ornamentation, Kahn wanted to suggest Roman vaults. Two courtyards are accessible, inviting the visitor into the open air and nature.
While there is a street entrance on the first floor, the proper entrance is the Kimbell Art Museum’s stunning facade, which leads directly into the 2nd-floor galleries. This main west facade has 3 100’ bays, each fronted by an open, barrel-vaulted entrance bay; portico, with the glazed central these light-filled spaces are the key feature of the interior, behind each of the side porticos. And 3 courtyards intersperse the interior space. Though modern in having no ornamentation, Kahn wanted to suggest Roman vaults. Two courtyards are accessible, inviting the visitor into the open air and nature.
Kimbell’s first building, by architect Louis Kahn, opened 1972
Kimbell Architecture Tour
Natural light and elegant spaces
Yelp
At first the Foundation collected mostly C18th and C19th British and French portraits. By the time Mr Kimbell died in 1964, the collection had grown to 260 paintings and 86 other art works, including Hals, Gainsborough, Vigée Le Brun and Leighton. Wishing to encourage art in Fort Worth, Kimbell left his estate to the Foundation, asking to create a first class museum. After his death, Velma contributed her share of the community property to the Foundation.
Early acquisitions (1965–75) included: Monet’s Point de la Hève at Low Tide; Bellini’s Christ Blessing; and Picasso’s classic Cubist Man with a Pipe 1911. In 1975, Kay Kimbell’s niece Ms B Fortson became President of the Directors Board, serving until 2017 when Kay's grandniece Ms M Wynne took over. The Directors raised vital funding for the Foundation for regular new purchases of important works eg El Greco’s Portrait of Dr Francisco de Pisa, Rubens’s Equestrian Portrait of Duke of Buckingham and Cézanne’s Man in a Blue Smock.
Edmund Pillsbury was the next director (1980–98). He added c150 works to the collection including La Tour’s Cheat with the Ace of Clubs; Caravaggio’s Cardsharps; a Velázquez portrait, Don Pedro de Barberana; Picasso’s Nude Combing Her Hair; Cézanne’s landscape Maison Maria with View of Château Noir; Caillebotte’s urban landscape On the Pont de l’Europe; Friedrich’s Mountain Peak with Drifting Clouds; Murillo’s Four Figures on Step; Fra Angelico’s St James Freeing Hermogenes; Matisse’s L’Asie; Mondrian’s Abstraction and Monet’s expressive Weeping Willow. Treasures!
Under Timothy Potts’ directorship (1998-2007), the collection was diversified with works including Raeburn’s Allen Brothers; an inlaid figurine from Peru; Bernini’s striking Modello for the Fountain of the Moor; and Lucas Cranach I’s masterwork, Judgment of Paris.
Under Eric Lee, director since 2009, the Kimbell further enriched the collection with the acquisition of Michelangelo’s Torment of St Anthony; Guercino’s majestic Christ and the Woman of Samaria; Poussin’s stately Christ Presenting the Keys to St Peter; Ruisdael’s Edge of a Forest with a Grainfield; an important Modigliani sculpture; and Bonnard’s light-filled Landscape at Le Cannet.
Kimbell is a major national museum for international loan exhibitions, accompanied by their publications and symposia. The first was devoted to Vigée Le Brun (1982), and later included retrospectives devoted to Poussin, Ribera, Tiepolo, Carracci and Matisse. Then they did surveys of C17th Spanish still-lifes and C18th French mythological works.
Portraits of Velma and Kay Kimbell,
by Dario Rappaport,1935
Kimbell Art Museum