Long Beach Museum of Art

Last updated
Long Beach Museum of Art
Long Beach Museum of Art
Established1950
Location2300 East Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, California, United States
Coordinates 33°45′49″N118°09′53″W / 33.7635°N 118.1648°W / 33.7635; -118.1648
TypeArt museum
Website lbma.org

The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California, United States.

Contents

The museum's permanent collection includes over 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative arts objects. Particular strengths include American decorative arts objects, early 20th century European art, California Modernism, and contemporary art of California.

The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

History

The structure occupied by the Long Beach Museum of Art was built in 1912 as a winter home by Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, a wealthy philanthropist and heir to Jeremiah Milbank, who was a financier, a co-founder of the Borden Company, and a founder of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. According to Fortune Magazine, “a number of Milbanks have been considerable figures in the industrial history of the U.S. and the family has also left its mark on the educational and medical institutions of the country…” (May 1959).

Elizabeth Milbank Anderson (1850–1921) was an energetic, strong-minded woman with a wide range of interests. She was a successful businesswoman, philanthropist and art collector who traveled frequently to Europe. In 1905 she established the Milbank Memorial Fund, which gave grants to various medical and educational projects; this fund is still in existence. She donated a library to Greenwich, Connecticut, and gave three blocks of choice New York City land to Barnard College, upon which was built Milbank Hall. She built public facilities for the poor, such as a sports arena and public baths, and established a program of free school lunches. Her husband, Abram A. Anderson, was a well-known portrait painter and friend of Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1926, the house became Long Beach's first social, athletic and beach club, the Club California Casa Real. Its prominence was soon eclipsed by the Pacific Coast Club, which opened three months later.

From 1929 to 1944, Thomas A. O’Donnell, a pioneer industrialist of the California oil industry, owned the house. He developed the Coalinga field, helped organize American Petroleum Corporation and became president of California Petroleum Co. and the first CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.

During World War II, the house was the U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer's Club. It was purchased by the City of Long Beach in 1950 for a Municipal Art Center, and designated in 1957 as the Long Beach Museum of Art. Today, while the museum is still owned by the City of Long Beach, its day-to-day operations are handled by a private foundation, the Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation. In the late 1990s, the foundation undertook a major capital campaign to fund the complete restoration of the historic facilities, relocation of the carriage house and construction of a new two-story exhibition pavilion. The project was completed in September, 2000.

The Elizabeth Milbank Anderson House and carriage house (now the Miller Education Center) were designed and built by the Milwaukee Building Company, an influential architectural firm that did other work for the Milbank family and associates. In 1911, Isaac Milbank, co-founder of the Borden Milk Company and an oil investor, had a magnificent Craftsman summer home constructed for him in Santa Monica by the Milwaukee Building Company. At the same time, the Milwaukee Building Company constructed a similar home on the same street in Santa Monica for retired hotel proprietor Henry Weaver, who owned several Midwest hotels.

The Milwaukee Building Company later became the Los Angeles firm of Meyer & Holler, an eminent firm that constructed numerous landmark buildings. Their most famous designs were the Chinese and Egyptian Theaters in Hollywood. In Long Beach, they designed the Ocean Center Building, Walker's Department Store, and the Fox West Coast Theater (now demolished).

Visiting

The museum is open Thursday through Sunday, 11am-5pm.

The museum also has an oceanview café with outdoor tables, Claire's at the Museum, that is open for lunch and also has a popular weekend brunch. The restaurant is named in honor of Claire Falkenstein, an American sculptor who created the restaurant's centerpiece, Structure and Flow, a fountain with twisting latticework, which was donated to the museum in 1972. [1]

Education and programs

The museum hosts exhibitions of artwork made by children and students of the community in its Toyota Student Gallery.

Since 1999, the Museum has provided education through its KidsVisions Program to all fifth grade students in the Long Beach Unified School District. The program content follows the guidelines of the National, State, and Long Beach School District Standards for Visual and Performing Arts.

The museum offers Toyota Tours free of charge to all school groups (public or private).

The museum schedules educator-led tours for the general public for groups of 10–15.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Roche</span> Irish-born American architect (1922–2019)

Eamonn Kevin Roche was an Irish-born American Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Kevin Roche was the archetypal modernist and "member of an elite group of third generation modernist architects — James Stirling, Jorn Utzon, and Robert Venturi — and is considered to be the most logical and systematic designer of the group. He and his partner John Dinkeloo of the firm KRJDA produced over a half-century of matchless creativity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milwaukee Art Museum</span> Art museum in Wisconsin, United States

The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Russell Pope</span> American architect (1874–1937)

John Russell Pope was an American architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building, the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, all in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfsonian-FIU</span> Art museum in Florida, United States

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University or The Wolfsonian-FIU, located in the heart of the Art Deco District of Miami Beach, Florida, is a museum, library and research center that uses its collection to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design. For fifteen years, The Wolfsonian has been a division within Florida International University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downtown Long Beach</span> Neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, United States

Downtown Long Beach, California, United States is the location for most of the city's major tourist attractions, municipal services and for numerous businesses. There are many hotels and restaurants in the area that serve locals, tourists, and convention visitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluff Park</span> Neighborhood of Long Beach in Los Angeles, California, United States

Bluff Park is a small, upscale neighborhood in Long Beach, California, United States. There is a bluff along much of the beach in Long Beach, and on one stretch, there is the narrow Bluff Park from which the neighborhood gets its name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Currier Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Ash Street Manchester, New Hampshire

The Currier Museum of Art is an art museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States. It features European and American paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture. The permanent collection includes works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, O'Keeffe, Calder, Scheier and Goldsmith, John Singer Sargent, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Andrew Wyeth. Public programs include tours, live classical music and "Family Days" which include activities for all ages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shelburne Museum</span> Museum of art and Americana in Vermont, U.S.

Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located in Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the museum grounds. It is located on 45 acres (18 ha) near Lake Champlain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Borden (company)</span> American food-product producer (1857–2001)

Borden, Inc., was an American producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products. At one time, the company was the largest U.S. producer of dairy and pasta products. Its food division, Borden Foods, was based in Columbus, Ohio, and focused primarily on pasta and pasta sauces, bakery products, snacks, processed cheese, jams and jellies, and ice cream. It was best known for its Borden Ice Cream, Meadow Gold milk, Creamette pasta, and Borden Condensed Milk brands. Its consumer products and industrial segment marketed wallpaper, adhesives, plastics and resins. By 1993, sales of food products accounted for 67 percent of its revenue. It was also known for its Elmer's and Krazy Glue brands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erie Art Museum</span> Art Museum in Pennsylvania, US

Erie Art Museum is located in Erie, Pennsylvania. The Museum holds a collection of more than 8,000 objects, with strengths in American ceramics, Tibetan paintings, Indian bronzes, photography, and comic book art. Focusing on the museum collection, the main gallery features Everything but the Shelves; over a thousand objects hung salon-style. In addition to its collection, the museum hosts four to five visiting exhibitions annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of steam road vehicles</span>

The history of steam road vehicles comprises the development of vehicles powered by a steam engine for use on land and independent of rails, whether for conventional road use, such as the steam car and steam waggon, or for agricultural or heavy haulage work, such as the traction engine.

Meyer & Holler was an architecture firm based in Los Angeles, California, noted for its opulent commercial buildings and movie theatres, including Grauman's Chinese and Egyptian theatres, built during the 1920s. Meyer & Holler was also known as The Milwaukee Building Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Milbank Anderson</span> Philanthropist and health advocate

Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, American philanthropist and advocate for public health and women's education, was the daughter of Jeremiah Milbank (1818–1884), a successful commission merchant, manufacturer and investor, and Elizabeth Lake (1827–1891). Anderson established in 1905 one of the first foundations funded by a woman, the Memorial Fund Association, with gifts of $9.3 million by the time of her death. Anderson in her lifetime supported a wide range of health and social reform efforts during the Progressive Era, from tuberculosis and diphtheria eradication to relief work for European children following World War I, for which she was made in 1919 a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government.

Jeremiah Milbank American businessman, was a successful dry goods commission merchant, speculator in Texas territorial bonds, manufacturer, and railroad investor. His most successful business efforts were the New York Condensed Milk Company which he co-founded with inventor Gail Borden and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway (1876) where he was a member of the executive committee of the Board of Directors. Milbank was a founder and president of the board of trustees of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church at 31st. Street, New York City, and trustee of the Baptist's Rochester Theological Seminary. The city of Milbank, South Dakota, which is the seat of Grant County, was founded in 1880 and named in his honor. Among other interests, Milbank was in 1870 an original subscriber of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and owned a box at the Metropolitan Opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages</span> Museum in Stony Brook, New York

The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages, known as the Long Island Museum (LIM), is a nine-acre museum located in Stony Brook, New York. The LIM serves the Long Island community by preserving and displaying its collection of art, historical artifacts, and carriages; providing educational and public programming; and collaborating with a variety of other arts and cultural organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putnam-Parker Block</span> United States historic place

The Putnam-Parker Block, also known as City Square, are historic structures located in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. The property includes three buildings that take up the south half of block 43 in what is known as LeClaire's First Addition. The main façade of the structures face south along West Second Street. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. In 2020, it was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District. The former Putnam Building now houses a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel named The Current Iowa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedro Joseph de Lemos</span> American painter

Pedro Joseph de Lemos was an American painter, printmaker, architect, illustrator, writer, lecturer, museum director and art educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to about 1930 he used the simpler name Pedro Lemos or Pedro J. Lemos; between 1931 and 1933 he changed the family name to de Lemos, believing that he was related to the Count de Lemos (1576–1622), patron of Miguel de Cervantes. Much of his work was influenced by traditional Japanese woodblock printing and the Arts and Crafts Movement. He became prominent in the field of art education, and he designed several unusual buildings in Palo Alto and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Southwest Building</span> Office in Texas, United States

The Great Southwest Building, formerly the Petroleum Building and the Great Southwest Life Building, is a historic commercial skyscraper located at 1314 Texas Avenue in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. Originally built in 1927 as an office space for The Texas Company, the building is now the site of the Cambria Hotel Houston Downtown Convention Center. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 8, 2019, for its historical and architectural significance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Propylaeum</span> Historic house in Indiana, United States

The Propylaeum, also known as the John W. Schmidt House or as the Schmidt-Schaf House, is a historic home and carriage house located at 1410 North Delaware Street in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana. The Propylaeum was named after the Greek word "propýlaion," meaning "gateway to higher culture." The property became the headquarters for the Indianapolis Woman's Club in 1923, as well as the host for several other social and cultural organizations. It was initially built in 1890-1891 as a private residence for John William Schmidt, president of the Indianapolis Brewing Company, and his family. Joseph C. Schaf, president of the American Brewing Company of Indianapolis, and his family were subsequent owners of the home.

References

  1. "Claire's at the Museum". Long Beach Museum of Art. 2009. Archived from the original on December 6, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2011.