Kimbell Art Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Kimbell Art Museum

The south wing of the museum showing a portico and five vaulted galleries. The tree-lined entry courtyard is at the far left.
Established	1972
Location	Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Type	Art museum
Collections	European Old Masters
Collection size	350
Nearest car park	On site (no charge)

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is a famous place that shows amazing art. It also hosts special art shows, offers learning programs, and has a huge library for research. The museum started with the art collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell. They also gave money to build a new home for their art.

The museum building was designed by a famous architect named Louis I. Kahn. Many people think it's one of the most important buildings of our time. It's especially known for how natural light shines softly across its curved gallery ceilings.

History of the Kimbell Art Museum

Kay Kimbell was a rich businessman from Fort Worth. He owned more than 70 companies! His wife, Velma Fuller, helped him get interested in art. In 1931, she took him to an art show where he bought a British painting. They started the Kimbell Art Foundation in 1935 to create an art institute. By the time Kay died in 1964, they had collected some of the best old masters paintings in the Southwest. Kay left most of his money to the foundation. Velma also gave her share, telling them to "build a museum of the first class."

Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, 1487-88

The foundation chose Richard Fargo Brown to be the museum's first director. His job was to build a home for the Kimbells' art. Brown said the new building should be a work of art itself, "as much a gem as one of the Rembrandts or Van Dycks housed within it." The museum was built on a 9.5-acre site in Fort Worth's Cultural District. This area already had other museums, like the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Amon Carter Museum.

Brown worked with the museum's leaders to plan the building. They hired Louis I. Kahn in October 1966. Kahn was famous for designing buildings like the Salk Institute. Construction for the Kimbell Art Museum began in 1969. The new building opened in October 1972. It quickly became known around the world for its amazing design.

Brown also bought many high-quality artworks for the Kimbell collection. These included pieces by artists like Duccio, El Greco, Rubens, and Rembrandt.

After Brown passed away in 1979, Edmund "Ted" Pillsbury became the director. He continued to buy important art for the museum. People said he helped the Kimbell become a museum whose art collection was as good as its building.

In 1989, Pillsbury wanted to make the museum bigger. But this plan was stopped because many people didn't want to change Kahn's original building. In 2007, the Kimbell found a solution: they would build a separate new building across the street. This new building, designed by Renzo Piano, opened in November 2013.

The museum is also part of the Monuments Men and Women Museum Network. This network helps protect art and cultural treasures.

The Kimbell Art Collection

Georges Braque, 1911–12, Girl with a Cross, oil on canvas, 55 x 43 cm

Joan Miró, 1918, Portrait of Heriberto Casany, oil on canvas, 70.2 x 62 cm

In 1966, the museum's first director, Richard Brown, said the goal was "definitive excellence, not size of collection." This means they wanted only the best art, not just a lot of it. Today, the museum has about 350 artworks, but they are all very high quality.

The European art collection is the largest. It includes Michelangelo's first known painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony. This is the only painting by Michelangelo on display in North or South America. You can also see works by Duccio, Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Monet, Matisse, Mondrian, Braque, Miró, and Picasso.

The museum also has ancient art from Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. The Asian collection includes sculptures, paintings, and ceramics from China, Korea, Japan, India, and other countries. Precolumbian art from the Maya, Olmec, and Aztec cultures is also on display. The African collection features sculptures from West and Central Africa.

The Kimbell Art Museum usually doesn't collect art made after the mid-20th century. This is because its neighbor, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, focuses on that period. It also doesn't collect American art, as the Amon Carter Museum specializes in that.

The museum also has a large library with over 59,000 books. It's a great resource for art historians and students.

The Kimbell Art Museum Building

Designing the Museum

Richard Brown's plan for the museum said the new building should be "a work of art." He also said that "natural light should play a vital part" in the design. He wanted a building that was beautiful on its own and wouldn't be spoiled by additions. Brown also wanted a building that felt comfortable and didn't make the art or visitors feel small.

After looking at many famous architects, the museum chose Louis Kahn in 1966. Brown really liked Kahn's work, especially how he used natural light.

Kahn was known for taking a long time and spending a lot of money on projects. So, a local company, Preston M. Geren, was hired to help keep things on track. Kahn believed a design was never truly finished until the building was built. This led to some disagreements, but in the end, Kahn had the final say on the design.

The new museum was built on a gentle slope. Kahn was asked to keep the building under 40 feet (12 m) tall. This was so it wouldn't block the view from the nearby Amon Carter Museum.

Building Architecture

Kimbell Art Museum at dusk

The museum has 16 long, curved sections called vaults. Each vault is 100 feet (30.6 m) long, 20 feet (6 m) high, and 20 feet (6 m) wide. The vaults are grouped into three parts. The north and south parts each have six vaults. The middle part has four vaults, with one open as an entry porch facing a courtyard.

Most of the art galleries are on the upper floor. This allows them to get natural light. The ground floor has service areas and another gallery. Each inside vault has a slot at the very top. This slot lets natural light into the galleries. Air ducts and other systems are hidden in the flat spaces between the vaults.

Kahn used special methods to make the galleries feel welcoming. The ends of the concrete vaults are covered with travertine stone. The steel handrails were treated to have a soft, matte texture. The museum also has three courtyards with glass walls. These courtyards bring more natural light into the gallery spaces.

The outdoor areas around the museum are also very special. Visitors walk past a lawn and pools with running water. Then they enter a courtyard with Yaupon Holly trees. The sound of footsteps on the gravel path echoes under the curved entry porch. This prepares visitors for the quiet museum inside, with its soft, silvery light.

Vaults and Skylights

One of the porticos at the front of the museum. This shell, like all the others, is supported only at its four corners, minimizing obstruction at floor level.

Kahn wanted the galleries to have curved ceilings like ancient Roman vaults. He worked with an expert in concrete, August Komendant. They used a special curve called a cycloid for the vaults. This made the ceilings 20 feet (6 m) high, which was perfect for the museum. This curve also helped spread natural light beautifully across the ceiling.

The curved roofs are made of thin, strong concrete. They are only five inches thick! These "vaults" only need support columns at their four corners. This means there are fewer columns inside, giving the museum more flexible space.

Kahn placed one of these curved sections at the front of each of the three parts of the museum. These act as porches or porticos. He said they looked "like a piece of sculpture outside the building."

Reflectors spread sunlight across the gallery ceilings. Kahn showed that the curved ceiling shells are supported only at their corners by allowing a thin strip of outside light to enter along the tops of the long gallery walls and a thicker arc of light to enter at the end of each gallery.

The skylight system in the Kimbell Art Museum is considered one of the best ever built. Kahn and lighting designer Richard Kelly tried over 100 different ways to get the light just right. Their goal was to light the galleries with indirect natural light. This means no direct sunlight, which can harm artworks.

Richard Kelly found that a special curved screen made of perforated (holed) aluminum could spread natural light evenly across the curved ceiling. He even used a computer to figure out the exact shape of the screen. This was one of the first times computers were used to design part of a building!

In areas without art, like the lobby, the whole screen has holes. This lets you see clouds passing by. In the galleries, the part of the screen directly under the sun is solid. The rest has holes. The concrete ceilings are very smooth to help reflect the light. This design allows the strong Texas sun to enter a narrow slot at the top of each vault. Then, it's reflected evenly across the polished concrete ceiling. This creates a beautiful, soft light that makes the art look amazing.

Museum Expansion

In 1989, the museum's director, Ted Pillsbury, wanted to add two new parts to the building. But many people strongly disagreed. They said that the original plan for the museum stated that additions would "spoil that form." Even Louis Kahn himself had said that if the museum needed to grow, it should be a "new building" located "away from the present structure across the lawn."

Kahn intended visitors to enter through the thoughtful landscaping at the front entry...

...but most visitors entered through the rear door from the parking lot. The new underground parking garage should solve this problem.

Renzo Piano Pavilion

In 2006, the idea of expanding the museum came up again. This time, the plan was to build a separate building, just as Louis Kahn had suggested. In 2007, the museum announced that Renzo Piano would design the new building. Piano was a great choice because he had worked in Louis Kahn's office when he was young. He also became a famous museum architect himself, designing places like the Menil Collection in Houston.

The new building, called the Renzo Piano Pavilion, opened in November 2013. It is 85,000 square feet (7,900 m²). It looks different from the original building but still fits well with it. The new building has straight lines, not curved ones like Kahn's. But it also has three main sections, like the original.

The new building also helped solve a parking problem. Kahn didn't like how cars affected cities. He put the main parking lot behind the museum. He wanted visitors to walk around the building and enter through the beautiful front landscaping. But most people just used the back door from the parking lot. The new building has an underground parking garage. Now, visitors can park, go up to the new building's galleries, and then walk across the lawn to enter Kahn's original building as he intended.

Awards and Recognition

The Kimbell Art Museum has received many awards and is highly praised:

• In 1998, the American Institute of Architects gave the museum their special Twenty-five Year Award. This award is given to only one building each year.
• Robert Campbell, a famous architecture critic, called it "the greatest American building of the second half of the 20th century."
• Robert McCarter, who wrote a book about Louis Kahn, said the Kimbell Art Museum "is rightly considered Kahn's greatest built work."
• Carter Wiseman, another author, said that with the Kimbell, Kahn created something unique. He used sunlight in an amazing way and combined it with modern design and advanced engineering.
• The construction company, Thos. S. Byrne, Ltd., won an award in 1972 for the "innovative construction techniques" they used on the museum.

European Collection Highlights

Asian Collection Highlights

• 

  Wang Zhao, The Three Stars of Happiness, Wealth, and Longevity, c. 1500, Chinese, Ming dynasty.

• 

  Wen Jia (Wen Chia), Landscape in the Style of Dong Yuan, 1577, Chinese, Ming dynasty.

• 

  Gong Xian, Landscape, c. 1650, ink on silk painting, Chinese, Qing dynasty.

• 

  Chen Jiayen, Bamboo, Rock, and Narcissus, 1652, Chinese, Qing dynasty.

See also

In Spanish: Museo de Arte Kimbell para niños

• Amon Carter Museum
• Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth