Established | 1919; in current building since 1979 |
---|---|
Location | 1900 W. MacArthur, Shawnee, Oklahoma |
Coordinates | 35°22′01″N96°57′13″W / 35.366848°N 96.953704°W |
Type | Art Museum |
Founder | Fr. Gregory Gerrer |
Website | mgmoa.org |
The Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art is a non-profit art museum in Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA. It is located on the former Oklahoma Baptist University Green Campus, being the campus of the former St. Gregory's University. In June of 2024, over six years since the closing of St. Gregory's University, it was announced that the university land would return to the monks of St. Gregory's Abbey. [1] The museum operated independently of St. Gregory's University and Oklahoma Baptist University and survived the closure and operational changes of the campus grounds. [2]
The museum's collection includes over 3,500 artworks, [3] and spans over 8,000 years of art, and represents cultures from around the world including ancient Egyptian, Chinese, pre-Columbian, African, Native American, European, and American art. The museum houses the official portrait of Pope Pius X and Oklahoma's only Egyptian mummies. [4] The museum includes a gift shop that sells educational toys, publications related to their exhibitions and arts and crafts from local artisans. The MGMoA is a member of the Oklahoma Association of Museums [5] and a member agency of Oklahoma City's Allied Arts. [6] From 2009 until 2020, the museum hosted the annual arts festival Arts Trek. [7]
The museum is named for Fr. Gregory Gerrer, a Benedictine monk of St. Gregory's Abbey, who was an art historian and art collector. During his travels in the United States, Europe, Africa and South America, he acquired art and artifacts to exhibit in Oklahoma. In 1919, the collection moved to Benedictine Hall where it was called St. Gregory's Abbey Art Gallery and Museum. [8] G. Patrick Riley visited the museum as a child in the early 1940s, and credits these visits as his inspiration to become an artist. [9] In 2022, a large sculpture by Riley and fellow artist Glen Henry entitled "Trinity Eagle" was erected in front of the museum building. [10] Starting in 1962, the Gerrer collection was on long-term loan to the Oklahoma Science and Arts Foundation in Oklahoma City. [11] St. Gregory's Abbey built a new building as a permanent home for the collection with matching funds from the Mabee Foundation. The Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art opened in 1979. The building was designed by Chadsey/Architects from Tulsa, Oklahoma. [8] An addition to this building opened in 1990 which expanded the educational programming offered by the museum. [2]
The museum was the exclusive United States venue to show Etruscan Treasures, an exhibit which featured Etruscan and Roman gold work, as well as artifacts from the Vatican Museums. [12] This was the first time that the gold jewelry, from the collection of Prince Fabrizio Alliata di Montereale, was publicly displayed. [13] The exhibit ran from June 1 through October 31, 2004, and was featured in a documentary produced by Oklahoma's Public Television Station. [14]
In August 2015, SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital - Shawnee performed CT scans on the two Egyptian mummies in the museum's collection. The mummies previously visited the same hospital in 1991 for X-rays. The scans showed that Tutu's organs had been individually mummified and placed back inside her stomach and chest cavity before she was wrapped in linen. [15]
The museum's collection began with a gift in 1903. While Fr. Gregory Gerrer was traveling in the Holy Land, he was presented with an Egyptian scarab with the hieroglyphic goose symbol on it. [16]
The museum houses an artifact collection that includes an ancient Egyptian mummy and sarcophagus, ancient Egyptian animal mummies, Roman glass, ancient Greek pottery, ancient Chinese terracotta figures, European ivory and icons, Venetian armor, Mesoamerican stone carvings, shrunken heads, Spanish colonial paintings, and African masks and bronzes. The paintings collection includes work from Guido Reni, Tintoretto, Guercino, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jean-Léon Gérôme, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, William Merritt Chase, Albert Bierstadt and Robert Priseman.
The institute's holdings in Spanish Colonial art include retablos (small religious paintings, frequently on tin), wooden sculptures of saints, and paintings. One anonymous painting, Christ of Ixmiquilpan, dates to the early 19th century and captures a miraculous alter scene in Mexico City. A temporary exhibition of Spanish Colonial Art ran from April to June in 2010. [17] The collection was shown at the Arlington Museum of Art in Arlington, Texas in a special exhibition from April 12 to May 26, 2013. [18]
Shawnee is a city in and the county seat of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 29,857 in 2010, a 4.9 percent increase from the figure of 28,692 in 2000. The city is part of the Oklahoma City-Shawnee Combined Statistical Area and the principal city of the Shawnee Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert and the Upper Nile Valley.
The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, commonly known simply as Glyptoteket, is an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The collection represents the private art collection of Carl Jacobsen (1842–1914), the son of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries.
The Bowers Museum is an art museum located in Santa Ana, California. The museum's permanent collection includes more than 100,000 objects, and features notable strengths in the areas of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, Native American art, the art of Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and California plein-air painting. The Bowers organizes and hosts special exhibitions from institutions throughout the world, and travels exhibitions nationally and internationally. The museum has a second campus two blocks south of the main site, Kidseum, a children's museum with a focus on art and archaeology. The Bowers Museum and Kidseum are located in Santa Ana 6.4 km south of Disneyland.
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and contains the richest collection of Greek Antiquity artifacts worldwide. It is situated in the Exarcheia area in central Athens between Epirus Street, Bouboulinas Street and Tositsas Street while its entrance is on the Patission Street adjacent to the historical building of the Athens Polytechnic university.
St. Gregory's University was a private Catholic university. It was one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It had its main campus in Shawnee and an additional campus in Tulsa. The university closed its operations at the end of the fall 2017 semester.
Glenda Allen Green is an American artist, academic, and writer. She has accomplishments in art, art history, science, philosophy, spirituality, and philosophy.
Exhibitions of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun have been held at museums in several countries, notably the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Japan, and France.
St. Gregory's Abbey is a Roman Catholic monastery of the American-Cassinese Congregation of the Benedictine Confederation. The monastery, founded by monks of the French monastery of Sainte-Marie de la Pierre-qui-Vire in 1876, was originally located in present-day Konawa, Oklahoma and called Sacred Heart Abbey. At present the community numbers around twenty-one monks who celebrate the Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours. They used to staff various parishes but no longer do so, and their school, St. Gregory's University, was closed and filed for bankruptcy in 2017.
Stephen Mopope (1898–1974) was a Kiowa painter, dancer, and Native American flute player from Oklahoma. He was the most prolific member of the group of artists known as the Kiowa Six.
Benjamin Harjo Jr. was a Native American painter and printmaker based in Oklahoma.
Museum of World Treasures is a world history museum in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Among the many items on display are Tyrannosaurus, Daspletosaurus, and Tylosaurus specimens, Egyptian mummies, signatures of all the American presidents, a section of the Berlin Wall, and a genuine shrunken head. The Museum of World Treasures is not limited to a particular era of history, but has opted to display a diverse collection representing many different fields of interest and a wide range of subjects. This museum is a member of the American Alliance of Museums, but is not accredited by the organization.
Earnest Spybuck was an Absentee Shawnee Native American artist, who was born on the land allotted the Shawnee Indians in Indian Territory and what was to later become Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, near the town of Tecumseh. M. R. Harrington, an archaeologist/anthropologist, was touring the area documenting Native Americans, their history, culture and living habits. Interested in the religious ceremonies of the Shawnee which included the use of peyote, Harrington had ventured to the Shawnee Tribal lands. There he learned of Earnest Spybuck's artistic work and encouraged Spybuck in his endeavors. While Spybuck's work was obviously art, Harrington saw that he was illustrating detailed scenes of ceremonies, games, and social gatherings which could be used to illustrate many anthropological publications. Spybuck's work was received positively by both Native American and non-native artistic communities. Many of his works are now held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
Benedictine Hall is located on the Green Campus of Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. It was the central feature of the now-closed St. Gregory's University, housing its administration, library and most of its classes. Designed by St. Louis architect Victor Klutho, the facility opened in the fall of 1915.
Rev. Gregory Gerrer, OSB was a Benedictine Priest at Sacred Heart Abbey, artist, art historian and museum founder.
Arts Trek was an annual cultural festival in Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States, in mid-spring. It was an event by the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art and was located on the former campus of St. Gregory's University. The one-day festival featured a performance walk, in which visitors move around campus in an organized trek to view fine arts performances such as choirs, spoken word art, theatre production scenes, interpretive dance, and live mural painting.
The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is a museum of archaeology located on the University of Michigan central campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. The museum is a unit of the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. It has a collection of more than 100,000 ancient and medieval artifacts from the civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East. In addition to displaying its permanent and special exhibitions, the museum sponsors research and fieldwork and conducts educational programs for the public and for schoolchildren. The museum also houses the University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology.
G. Patrick Riley is an artist, art educator and mask maker from Oklahoma. His masks have been used in productions at the Kennedy Center. His works are in the collections of Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, Oklahoma State Capitol, Arkansas Arts Center, AT&T collection and Lady Gaga. In 2011, the Oklahoma Supreme Court awarded Riley a commission to create an eagle sculpture, 28 feet in height, in the atrium of the supreme court building.
The Museum of Ancient Art in Aarhus, Denmark is museum dedicated to the ancient art and cultural history of the mediterranean countries, in particular Ancient Greece, Etruscan civilization and Ancient Rome. The museum is situated in the university campus in the district Midtbyen.