Art History at Kimbell Art Museum Tx

The Cardsharps, 

by Caravaggio, c1595

Kimbell Art Museum

Portrait of May Sartoris, 

by Frederic Leighton, c1860

Kimbell Art Museum

Kay Kimbell (1886-1964), who made his vast wealth from grain and milling businesses, married Velma Fuller (1887-1982) in 1910. They created the Kimbell Art Foundation in 1936, along with Velma’s sister and her husband, Dr and Mrs Coleman Carter.

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.

Kimbell’s first building, by architect Louis Kahn, opened 1972

Kimbell Architecture Tour

Natural light and elegant spaces

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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.

Other exhibitions organised by The Kimbell: The Blood of Kings in Maya Art (1986), Georges de La Tour and His World (1996), Monet and the Mediterranean (1997), Renoir Por­t­raits (1998), Matisse and Pic­asso: A Gentle Rivalry (1999), Stubbs and the Horse (2004), Picturing the Bib­le: Earliest Christian Art (2007), Caravaggio and His Foll­ow­ers in Rome (2011), Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (2013), Faces of Impress­ion­ism: Portraits from Musée d'Orsay (2014) and Monet: Early Years (2016). The Museum also hosted major travelling exhibitions, starting with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings from USSR (1973); and Age of Pic­asso-Matisse: Modern Masters from Chicago Art Institute.

Portraits of Velma and Kay Kimbell,

by Dario Rappaport,1935

Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Foundation still owns and runs the Mus­eum, hol­d­­­ing c350 works from different eras and movements. Art history students: read the excell­ent Kimb­ell Art Museum: Masterworks from the Collection Eric Lee et al., 2022!!