Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum opened in 1939 and is located in a former 1920s villa, “Villa Philbrook,” the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife, Genevieve. Showcasing nine collections of art from all over the world and spanning various artistic media and styles, the cornerstone collection focuses on Native American art featuring basketry, pottery, paintings, and jewelry.
History
The Philbrook Art Museum, under the guidance of its first director, Eugene Kingman, opened its doors to the public on October 25, 1939, with a permanent art collection made up of works from the Tulsa Art Association and Villa Philbrook. In 1940, studio art classes were initiated, and a touring program for school children the following year resulted in the addition of a Children’s Museum in 1949. A new museum wing was built in 1969 in response to an increased demand for studio art classes, but the use of this space has since changed. The art museum underwent difficult financial times in the 1980s and a renaissance in the 1990s. The name changed from the Philbrook Art Center to The Philbrook Museum of Art in 1987 when it was first accredited. In 2009, after a two-year process, Philbrook was reaccredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), one of 286 art museums and 775 museums overall out of the estimated 17,500 museums in the United States.
Building
The museum’s original structure is an Italian Renaissance villa that was the former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife, Genevieve. Phillips commissioned prominent Kansas City architect Edward Buehler Delk to design the mansion in 1926; construction began the same year by the John Long Company of Kansas City and was completed the following year. Named “Villa Philbrook,” the three-story mansion was constructed of steel and a reinforced concrete framework that resulted in minimal remodeling required to transform the villa into an art museum. The house’s exterior is stucco, which includes ground white marble in the mixture causing it to glitter. The corners are quoted with Kasota limestone, quarried in Minnesota, that resembles Italian travertine. This stonework also decorates the doors and windows. In the rear of the house, a loggia showcasing five arches with Corinthian columns highlights a terrace overlooking the formal gardens. The roof features wide eaves and is covered with oversized Italianate tiles. Bed Bug Exterminator Tulsa
Gardens
The museum has 25 acres (93,000 m²) of formal and informal gardens. Initially designed by Hare & Hare, the expansive grounds contain elaborate gardens inspired by Villa Lante, an Italian country estate north of Rome designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in 1566. The formal gardens, with their rills and diagonal walks linking the mansion to the rustic pool below, graced with a classical tempietto, are part of the original design and construction. To the south of the property, the gardens extending to the summerhouse were conceived later and completed in 2004. They feature native Tulsa, OK, plants, and a refurbished creek. The bronze sculpture by Barry Flanagan, Thinker on a Rock, is located in this section.
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