Stark Museum of Art

The Stark Museum of Art opened to the public on November 29, 1978, in Orange. H. J. Lutcher Stark had talked about such a museum as early as 1927 and died in 1965 before it was built. His wife Nelda directed the project after his death, and the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, which the couple founded in 1961, built it. Construction finished in 1976, and the building won the Building Stone Institute's Tucker Award in 1977.

The two-story building has about 33,000 square feet of white marble cladding and was designed by Page Southerland Page of Austin, with architect Ernesto G. Liebrecht. Inside, the collection began with Stark collecting American Indian objects and paintings of the American West as a University of Texas undergraduate in the late 1920s and early 1930s. After the couple married in 1943 they built a strong holding of Taos Society of Artists works, Paul Kane paintings, porcelain, Steuben glass and Audubon's The Birds of America.

The museum lists American Western art by Remington, Russell and O'Keeffe, along with American Indian baskets, pottery, clothing and jewelry. It is at 712 Green Avenue, and the Stark Foundation also runs the Shangri La gardens. The museum is open Wednesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission is free. Visitors stop at the entry desk to check in. It is closed on New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the last week of December.