About Our Treasures

Our Treasures:  Our Collection
Kristin Makholm, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Minnesota Museum of American Art

The title of this exhibition, Our Treasures, points to a fundamental characteristic of the collection of the Minnesota Museum of American Art; namely, that it belongs to us.  Whether you choose to interpret that narrowly, as works belonging to the MMAA, Saint Paul’s only art museum—or more broadly, as art linked to the city of Saint Paul or the state of Minnesota—the collection is held in public trust.  It reflects the enthusiasms of an era, and of individuals who wished to put outstanding art and the work of our artists into the lives of the people of Saint Paul and those who visit here.

The development of this collection is an interesting story marked by grand dreams, tumultuous times, and shrewd networking.  It twists and turns, according to the fascinations of collectors dedicated to building a topnotch collection in Saint Paul, as well as ambitious artists, administrators, and directors.  With nine names and more than thirteen different venues over 117 years, one needs a roadmap to keep up with the evolution and whereabouts of the Minnesota Museum of American Art (see MMAA Redux).  Admittedly, while settling on a location and mission might have been the MMAA’s central challenges over the course of its development, the ebb and flow of collections is also clearly connected to that peripatetic history.

It is fitting then that the beginning of the MMAA’s collection is tied to one of its locations, 476 Summit Avenue, the sandstone mansion that transformed the Saint Paul School of Art into a gallery and then, ultimately, an art museum (Fig. 1).  Sold to the school in 1939 by Mr. and Mrs. Roger Shepard for one dollar, the house was given the first accession number, 39.01.01, marking the moment when art collecting would become an official activity of this dynamic art school.  While the Saint Paul Gallery and School of Art spent most of the 1940s developing its exhibition program, mounting ambitious exhibitions in a whirl of activity that seems dizzying today, it accepted gifts from patrons and artists and slowly entered the fray of collecting.  

A significant bequest of Chinese jade in 1947 inaugurated the gallery’s focus on Asian art and, for the first time, brought a museum-quality collection into the Summit Avenue mansion.  This was the same year that a design curator from the Walker Art Center, Malcolm E. Lein, crossed the Mississippi to become the gallery’s first non-artist director and initiated a slew of programs and events that would bring focus to the collecting ambitions of the organization.  Minnesota artists of all ilks—painters, sculptors, craftspeople in all manner of media, illustrators, and architectural draftsmen—had a place in the exhibition programs and sales opportunities at the gallery.  Biennials of craft and drawing drew thousands of artists from across the country and established the Saint Paul Gallery and School of Art (and its successors, the Saint Paul Art Center and the Minnesota Museum of Art) as a leader in American innovation in the arts.  While collections of Old Masters, African and Southeast Asian art, and modern European and American artists flooded the gallery, and later the collection, it was the art of Minnesotans—whether born and bred, or newly immigrated—that distinguished the burgeoning collections of Saint Paul’s upstart art museum.

The major redefinition of the museum’s collection occurred in the mid- to late-1990s when over 60 percent of the collection was de-accessioned to herald the museum’s revamped focus on American art.  From its maximum of about 10,500 artworks in the early 1990s to approximately 3,700 a decade later, the now Minnesota Museum of American Art focused on works that embodied the unique spirit of American visual art, from nineteenth century landscapes and portraits to artworks that expressed the multicultural concerns and directions of the late twentieth century.  This turn towards American art as a stated focus of the museum began with the 1982 acquisition of a major painting by Robert Henri (the 1906 Modiste of Madrid) and other outstanding early twentieth century American realist works by artists such as Childe Hassam, John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, and many others.  The acquisition of a significant collection of Edward S. Curtis photographs in 1986 signaled the museum’s entry into collecting American photographs—a passion of the museum’s then director, M. James Czarniecki III.

But, while interest in assembling a great collection of American art accelerated from the 1980s on, it was the focus on Minnesota art—and those artists who lived, worked, labored, and loved this region—that uniquely marked the collections of the MMAA from its very beginning.  Strengthened in 1966 with a major gift of 357 works by the Saint Paul born sculptor Paul Manship, this concentration on our artists gives the museum’s collection its unique flavor and historical vitality.  Connections with Minnesota’s strong craft communities and its Native American (and especially Ojibwe) culture, as well as work by local artists from professionals to amateurs, all accentuate the vibrant discourse that emanates from the collections of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.  

Thus, it was challenging for this director/curator to choose highlights from a collection that is as obviously deep, rich, and compelling—one that tells so many unique stories—as that of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.  Our Treasures is admittedly only one story—which would have been told differently by another curator—of the bountiful holdings of this collection.  It features many old favorites, as well as works that have slipped through the cracks but deserve renewed attention and appreciation.  Themes run in rivulets through the exhibition:  fascination with the American landscape, with portraiture, and with the development of twentieth-century abstraction.  Craft takes a bow—as it rightly should, considering its importance in the MMAA history.  Of the thirty works in Our Treasures, two-thirds were purchased after 1980; others were acquired through gift and museum-organized shows in the 1960s and 1970s.

The collections of the Minnesota Museum of American Art are still growing, as is the museum, which at this point lacks dedicated galleries and a physical home in Saint Paul.  During this time of transition, when staff and trustees work determinedly to re-position the MMAA in the physical and cultural life of our region, our great collection has become the institution’s standard-bearer—the life blood that connects the rich history and solid legacy of this august museum to audiences of the present, as well as the future.