![]() During the 1960s, the Walker organized increasingly ambitious exhibitions that circulated to museums in the United States and abroad. Gilbert Walker made possible the acquisition of works by important artists of the day, including pieces by Franz Marc, Lyonel Feininger, and Edward Hopper. The museum’s focus on modern art began in the 1940s, when a gift from Mrs. The institution’s mission-to both champion the production of new art and preserve historically important cultural artifacts-has shaped a collection that has evolved well beyond the original tastes and vision of its founder. Thus, the years 1939–1940 marked the birth of the Walker Art Center as we know it today. ![]() It was to serve as both an inspiring “meeting place for all the arts” and a repository for a distinguished and varied art collection. Walker’s personal gallery of historic paintings, his heirs and thousands of Minneapolis citizens collaborated to create a model regional art center. Seventy-five years ago, when the Depression-era Works Progress Administration and the Federal Art Project proposed reanimating T. On May 21, 1927, the Walker Art Galleries opened on the present site of the Walker Art Center. After five years of negotiations with no progress, Walker withdrew his offer and built his own museum, hiring local architects Long & Thorshov to design it. Two years later, he offered the site and his collections to the City of Minneapolis on the condition that a public gallery be built. In 1916, Walker purchased the land now known as Lowry Hill. The Jade Room, the Jean-Claude Cazin Room, and the Miniature Room, for example, were decorated with paintings hung salon-style from floor to ceiling, classical sculptures, antique furniture, and rare Oriental rugs. Walker continued to collect, he expanded the space, and by 1915 it included 14 rooms, each with a different theme. It was also a modest start for a contemporary art center now revered throughout the world for the range and vitality of its visual arts, performing arts, and media arts programs.Īs T. B.) Walker’s art gallery was a unique venue for the art of its time. More than 125 years ago, a Minneapolis man built a room onto his house, mounted his favorite paintings on the walls, and opened his door to everyone who wanted to come in.
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