McNay Art Museum (12/24/2014)

Next stop: The McNay Art Museum. I'd never been before in all my San Antonio visits. It's very cool. Marion Koogler McNay, upon her death in 1950, left her 24-room mansion, the surrounding 23 acres of land, a collection of over 700 works of art, and an endowment to establish the first museum of modern art in Texas. In 1954 the McNay opened its doors to the public. Since then, much has been added to the building, but the heart of the museum is the original home and collection. These peacock-inspired rod iron gates separate the dining room from one of the patios on the house.

There was an exhibit from the National Gallery of Art on Impressionism that we toured along with the rest of the museum. Our tour group split into two small groups and we each had a private tour with our own docent. Our docent was knowledgeable and made it all very interesting. I of course was drawn to the more geometric pieces. This is "Winged Figure II" made in the very good year of 1957 by British artist Barbara Hepworth.

This is "String Composition #T-220" by American artist Sue Fuller, created in 1965.

Fortunately, our amazing tour director Sheryl, who has been to San Antonio many times, made sure that we all saw the Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, which comprises over 9,000 theatre arts objects focusing on scene and costume designs, as well as the research library, cool spiral staircase, and REALLY big doors. We got two private tours of the McNay. :-)