Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in 2020,[2] it is the 12th largest art museum in the world based on square feet of gallery space. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 70,000 works from six continents.[3] In 2023, the museum received over 900,000 visitors, making it the 20th most-visited museum in the United States.
Established
1900
1001 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77005 United States
Art museum, institute, library, sculpture park[1]
Claim for restitution[edit]
In 2021 the Monuments Men Foundation announced that it had located a painting from the collection of Max Emden in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH).[21] According to the foundation, the painting by Bernardo Bellotto, called The Marketplace at Pirna, had an inaccurate provenance that concealed the history of the painting.[22][23] After the MFAH refused to restitute the painting the Emden heirs filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Texas.[24][25]
The museum, which had rejected the Emden heirs’ claims since 2007, disagreed with the characterization of the painting as having been subject to a forced or duress sale due to Nazi persecution. MFAH director Gary Tinterow stated that Emden sold the painting voluntarily and, that after consulting provenance and legal experts, “we concluded that we had good title.”[26] The museum also states that the Bellotto is one of multiple nearly identical versions by the artist, and was bought by Samuel H. Kress in 1952 and later donated to the museum in 1961.[27]
Kishi Ganku (Japan), Tiger in Landscape (1770-1839), ink and watercolor on paper, 171.2 × 372.1 × 1.5 cm.
Indian, Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita Cooking and Eating in the Wilderness (c. 1820), gouache & gold on paper, 21.6 × 16.5 cm.
Arts of Africa, the Indigenous Pacific Islands, Australia, and the Americas [* = mixed media: ** = painted wood: *** = earthenware]
Arts of Asia and the Islamic Worlds
Antiquities
European and American painting (1400-1899) [all oil on canvas except: ** = tempera & gold leaf on panel; * = oil on panel]
Impressionism, postimpressionism, and early modern art [all oil on canvas unless noted otherwise]
Management[edit]
Philippe de Montebello directed the museum from 1969 to 1974.[28] During the 28-year tenure of Peter Marzio between 1982 and 2010, the Museum of Fine Arts’ yearly attendance increased to roughly two million from 300,000; its operating budget climbed to $52 million from $5 million, and its endowment reached $1 billion[17] (before the 2008 recession dropped its value to about $800 million).[28] The museum's permanent collection more than tripled in size, to 63,000 works from 20,000.[29] In 2010, Marzio was the sixth-highest-paid charity chief executive in the country, with compensation in 2008 of $1,054,939.[17] A year after Peter Marzio died in 2010, Gary Tinterow was appointed as the museum's director.[30] Mari Carmen Ramírez is a Puerto Rican Art curator and the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
