Wichita Art Museum

(2,900 m²) of galleries. The museum was established in 1915, when Louise Caldwell Murdock's will created a trust to start the Roland P. Murdock Collection of art in memory of her husband. The first museum building, designed by New York architect Clarence Stein, opened in 1935 with art borrowed from other institutions, as the first work in the Murdock Collection was only purchased in 1939. Elizabeth Stubblefield Navas, a friend of Louise Murdock's, selected and purchased works for the collection until 1962. A foundation was established two years later for the purpose of raising funds for new acquisitions. The museum building was enlarged with a new lobby and two new wings designed by Robert J. Schaefer in 1963, before the city commissioned architect Edward Larrabee Barnes to design a new and larger climate controlled facility, completed in 1977. In 2003, the museum inaugurated another expansion, which expanded the total area of the museum to 115,000 sq. Ft. Tera Hedrick, an art historian and Wichita East High School graduate, was hired as curator in 2017 after serving in an interim role. In January 2020, the museum announced that it would begin renovation on its main entrance and lobby, which was completed that year.

• Name — Wichita Art Museum • Founder — Louise Caldwell Murdock • Location — 1400 W Museum Blvd Wichita, Kansas United States • Type — Art museum • Collection Size — 12,000 works • Visitors — 80,000 (2023) • Director — Molly McFerson

Wichita Art Museum is associated with United States.