Vast art campus with a global outlook
The largest cultural institution in a region rich with art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston holds nearly 80,000 works from the ancient world to the present day. The encyclopedic collections are especially strong in pre-Columbian and African gold, Renaissance and baroque painting and sculpture, 19th- and 20th-century art, photography and Latin American art. In recent decades, the museum has increased its representation of Islamic heritage with its Art of the Islamic Worlds initiative. Two important contemporary highlights are the Cullen Sculpture Garden, designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and James Turrell’s permanent underground installation, “The Light Inside” (1999). Under director Gary Tinterow, a $450 million expansion in 2020 by Steven Holl Architects added the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for post-1900 art and a new home for the Glassell School of Art to the 14-acre campus. Nearby, two remarkable house museums, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi, present collections of American and European decorative arts.
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