Three Reasons to visit the Philbrook Museum of Art

I was twelve years old when I first visited the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The Italian-Renaissance style mansion (the first mansion I had ever entered) and gardens impressed me then and continue to do so each time I return.  

Oil tycoon Waite Phillips (1883-1964) and his wife Genevieve built Villa Philbrook on 25 acres in 1927.  In 1938 they donated their Tulsa residence to the Tulsa community to:

create a cultural institution for housing, preserving, and displaying therein works of art, literature, relics and curios, including those representative of the native North American Peoples."  --Waite and Genevieve Phillips

The Phillips would be pleased with the hard work that has taken place over generations to establish and enhance that vision. 

​What are three reasons to visit The Philbrook Museum of Art?

​#1.  The Art.

• American Indian art.  This collection is an acclaimed pillar of the museum.  During the period 1949-1979, the museum held the competitive "Indian Annual." As a result, the general public became more familiar with Native American art, private and public collectors (including The Philbrook) increased their Native American art collections, and The Philbrook gained a national reputation.
• African, American, Asian, and European art.  Purchases and donations (especially donations) have shared in the expansion of The Philbrook's permanent collection. 
• National traveling exhibits.  My husband and I visited the museum in September 2019 in order to see Wondrous Worlds:  Art & Islam Through Time and Place. Courtesy of The Newark Museum's extensive collection, objects from the Middle East and India were arrayed along with works from Africa and Southeast Asia in order to showcase the diversity and global impact of Islamic art.  Since I'm a "word person," I especially liked the handwritten Koran illustrated in still-vivid drawings. ​

#2.  The Gardens.

East Formal Garden, September 2019.

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