Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art began with the Dallas Art Association, founded by eighty citizens in 1903. Its first gallery opened in Fair Park in 1909, and a larger building there, finished in 1936, opened with an exhibition tied to the Texas Centennial that drew more than 154,000 visitors. Jerry Bywaters directed the museum for twenty-one years and built its collections around Southwestern and Mexican art; the Museum School of Art, begun in 1941, taught classes in its own studios until the mid-1960s.

In March 1955 a local women's club charged the museum with showing artists with Communist affiliations, and works by Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera and others came down for a time. In December the trustees said they would exhibit and acquire work only on its merit as art. The museum merged with the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art in 1963.

The present building, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and paid for by a 1979 bond vote and private gifts, opened in January 1984 on the northern edge of downtown. Its central barrel vault is anchored by Claes Oldenburg's Stake Hitch. A decorative arts wing opened in 1985 holds the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection in a replica of the Reves villa La Pausa in southern France. Viewing the collection is free; some special exhibitions need a paid ticket, and the museum is closed Mondays.