Museums and Collections

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

555 Elm Ave., Norman, OK 73019
Phone: (405) 325-4938
museuminfo@ou.edu 
www.ou.edu/fjjma/

Located at the intersection of Boyd Street and Elm Avenue, the University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is one of the finest university art museums in the United States.

In 1936, with the acquisition of a large collection of East Asian art (750 objects), the generous gift of Lew Wentz and Gordon Matzene, the University of Oklahoma Museum of Art was officially founded and Jacobson was named its director. By this time, Jacobson had already collected more than 2,500 works of art for the University. The new museum's first galleries were in what is now Jacobson Hall. In 1948, the permanent collection was further embellished with the purchase of the so-called State Department Collection, comprised of 36 paintings from the exhibition Advancing American Art and including major works by artists such as Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Edward Hopper.

Jacobson's vision of a permanent facility to house the art finally came to fruition in 1971, when Mr. and Mrs. Fred Jones of Oklahoma City donated a fine arts building to the University in memory of their son, Fred Jones, Jr., who had died in an airplane crash during his senior year at the University of Oklahoma. The resulting structure, the Fred Jones Jr. Memorial Art Center, housed the Museum of Art, which contains 15,000 square feet of exhibition space, the School of Art, and the administrative offices of the College of Fine Arts. In 1992, the Museum of Art was re-designated the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.

Over the years, the museum's permanent collection has grown exponentially through the generosity of donors such as Max Weitzenhoffer and Jerome M. Westheimer Sr. In 1996, with an initial gift of $1 million from Mrs. Fred Jones, OU President and Mrs. David L. Boren spearheaded a successful fundraising campaign to acquire the important collection of the late Richard H. and Adeline J. Fleischaker, which is composed primarily of Native American and Southwestern art.

2000 was a watershed year in the development of the FJJMA's collections, with the gift of the Weitzenhoffer Collection of French Impressionism, which consists of 33 works of art by Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Vuillard, and others. It is the most important collection of French Impressionism ever given to an American public university. The gift came to the University at the bequest of Clara Weitzenhoffer, an art collector and longtime University of Oklahoma supporter.

In 2005, the museum opened a new addition, designed by acclaimed architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen of Washington, D.C. Named in honor of Mary and Howard Lester of San Francisco, the wing added more than 34,000 square feet to the earlier 27,000-square-foot building. The Lester Wing features galleries for the Weitzenhoffer Collection, additional galleries, a 150-seat auditorium, an orientation room, a classroom, a museum store, and a new main entrance. Jacobsen designed the Lester Wing as a sequence of limestone pavilions having pyramidal slate roofs with glass skylights at their apexes. The building features an abundance of natural light, pure geometries, clarity of plan, and well-proportioned, top-lighted galleries that have an intimate, human scale. The resulting serene, contemplative spaces put the visitor in the proper frame of mind for viewing works of art.

The Adkins Foundation Board announced in July 2007 that the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa had been jointly selected to steward the Eugene B. Adkins Collection. The joint partnership by OU and the Philbrook was among many proposals submitted by leading museums across the country. The Adkins Collection, which is valued at approximately $50 million, features approximately 3,300 objects, including more than 400 paintings by such distinguished American artists as Maynard Dixon, Worthington Whittridge, Andrew Dasburg, Alfred Jacob Miller, Victor Higgins, Charles M. Russell, Nicolai Fechin, John Marin, William R. Leigh, Leon Gaspard, and Joseph H. Sharp. The collection also includes impressive examples of Native American paintings, pottery, and jewelry by such famed Native American artists as Jerome Tiger, Maria Martinez, and Charles Loloma.

In spring 2010, Arizona-based James T. Bialac decided to give his private collection to OU because of the University’s commitment to excellence in education. The multimillion-dollar collection of more than 4,500 works represents indigenous cultures across North America, especially the Pueblos of the Southwest, the Navajo, the Hopi, many of the tribes of the Northern and Southern Plains, and the Southeastern tribes. Included in the James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection are approximately 2,600 paintings and works on paper, more than 1,000 kachinas, and 400 works of varying media, including ceramics and jewelry, representing major Native artists such as Fred Kabotie, Awa Tsireh, Fritz Scholder, Joe Herrera, Allan Houser, Jerome Tiger, Tonita Peña, Helen Hardin, Pablita Velarde, George Morrison, Richard “Dick” West, Patrick DesJarlait and Pop Chalee.

The Stuart Wing, which opened in October 2011, provides a new 18,000-square-foot expansion of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art to house the museum’s many collections acquired within the past 15 years. Designed by noted architect Rand Elliott, the addition is named to honor a $3 million lead gift from the Stuart Family Foundation made possible by the generosity of OU Regent Jon R. Stuart and his wife, Dee Dee, a member of the art museum’s board of visitors. Construction on the new wing began in 2009 and includes renovations to the original 1971 building and the addition of the Eugene B. Adkins Gallery, a new photography/works on paper gallery, and new administrative offices. In all, the new Stuart Wing, with renovations, includes 27,480 square feet of exhibition space. Combining that with the 2005 Lester Wing’s 12,106 square footage, the total museum exhibition space, is approximately 40,000 square feet.

In November 2012, the University of Oklahoma announced a new annual $60,000 gift from the OU Athletics Department that now provides free admission for all visitors to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in perpetuity. This unique collaboration between athletics and art is one of the first in the United States creating free admission for a university art museum through a university athletics program.

The museum serves the educational needs of the University and the extended community through programs coordinated with the University faculty and the state’s school districts. Museum information and art curriculum guides are provided to teachers and University faculty, and the museum sponsors the pARTner project, an arts education program that reaches 1,200 Norman Public School students annually.

Lectures, videos, and films complement the permanent collection and special exhibitions. Programs such as Art “à la Carte,” Family Days, Art Adventures, Tuesday Noon Concerts, and Art After Noon utilize the museum’s galleries, classroom, and auditorium and make the arts accessible to tens of thousands of visitors throughout the year. Tours are offered to all ages.