McNay Art Museum

The oldest modern art museum in Texas, housed in a magnificent 1929 Mediterranean Revival mansion on 23 acres of landscaped grounds in the Alamo Heights neighbourhood, north of downtown. Marion Koogler McNay's personal collection — assembled over decades of buying what she loved — covers Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, and modern American art with an eye for quality over completeness.

The building and grounds are as much the attraction as the collection. The courtyard, fountain garden, and lily pond are lovely for an hour of wandering after seeing the galleries. Strong in Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, and Marin; the theatre arts collection (costume designs, stage models, playbills) is unique in the region. Free on Thursdays.

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A story
Marion Koogler McNay was a schoolteacher who inherited money, moved to San Antonio, and spent the rest of her life buying art. When she died in 1950, she left her Mediterranean Revival mansion and 23 acres of grounds to the city as a public art museum — the first modern art museum in Texas. Her personal collection of Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso formed the core; subsequent directors have added works by O'Keeffe, Hopper, and a major theatre arts collection.

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