Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida) facts for kids
The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida was founded by the art collector Margaret Acheson Stuart. The museum is based in a building designed by John Volk & Associates, and opened in 1965.
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| Established | 1965 |
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| Location | 255 Beach Drive NE Saint Petersburg, Florida |
| Type | Art |
| Public transit access | downtown Looper Trolley |
History
The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) was founded by art collector and philanthropist Margaret Acheson Stuart (1896–1980). The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society, the museum's independent support organization, is named in her honour.
The city provided the four-acre waterfront site for the construction of the original building and The Junior League of St. Petersburg offered resources for The Great Hall. The building was designed by John Volk and Associates of Palm Beach, with a curving colonnade on Beach Drive. Volk stated that "a museum should give a feeling of permanence and that is what I have tried to do with this building." Chartered by the State of Florida in 1961, the MFA opened its Beach Drive doors to the public in 1965; the first art museum in St. Petersburg. The size of the museum was more than doubled in 2008, when the 33,000 square-foot Hazel Hough wing on the north side of the building was completed. The expansion included a new café, an enlarged library and a bigger museum shop, all since removed.
On June 23, 2022, a Bahamian artist, Gio Swaby, celebrated Black women at Museum of Fine Arts.
The museum's holdings span over 5,000 years of human history and feature works from artists such as Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, and Cézanne, as well as significant works of art from Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Collection
The museum's exhibitions have displayed Chihuly Across Florida: Masterworks in Glass (2004); Monet’s London, Artists’ Reflections on the Thames, 1859–1914 (2005), and Ancient Egypt: Art and Magic, Treasures from the Fondation Gandur Pour l’Art/Geneva (2011–2012), Moon Museum: Art and Outer Space (2018), Syd Solomon: Views From Above (2018-2019), Art of the Stage: Picasso to Hockney (2020), From Margins to Mainstays: Highlights from the Photography Collection (2021), Explore the Vaults: Cabinet Pictures and Works on Paper (2022), True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism (2023), and more.
