Edward Hopper, Light at Two Lights, 1927, Watercolor on paper, 1989.2.23
The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts has collected American paintings, sculpture and works on paper since it opened in 1930. Throughout the years, the Museum has acquired both individual works and collections which have made its American holdings among the most comprehensive in the Southeast. Many aspects of American art are always on view at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts from Colonial period portraiture to contemporary 20th century American expressions of visual creativity in most every medium.
The Blount Collection of American Paintings
The Blount Collection of American Paintings is a chronological survey of oil and watercolor paintings by some of this country's most important artists. The collection was given to the Museum in 1988, and it is installed in dedicated galleries within the permanent collection wing.
Exemplary works from all periods of American art are the cornerstone of the Blount Collection. The collection includes the Colonial portraits of John Singleton Copley and Charles Wilson Peale; landscapes by Thomas Moran and Frederic Edwin Church; outstanding watercolor paintings by Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast and Charles Demuth; and modern masterpieces by Stuart Davis and Edward Hopper.
With this single gift, a gesture that was as enlightened as it was generous, Blount, Incorporated and its founder, Winton M. Blount, transformed the character of the collection of the Museum and the community as a whole. What began as a modest, but excellent collection of American art became a comprehensive demonstration of the finest work this nation's artists have produced.
"The art assembled in this collection is an expression of our society and heritage. From artists of colonial times to the present, the Blount Collection presents a diversity of art in which each person, in his own way, can find something of enjoyment and inspiration." Winton M. Blount, 1988.
Regional Art
The southeastern United States and Alabama have provided art history with a wealth of examples demonstrating the varied forms that human creativity can take. From drawings by the self-taught painter and draftsman Bill Traylor to the evocative interpretations of the local landscape by J. Kelly Fitzpatrick, the Museum preserves and exhibits excellent examples of regional art from the 1930s to the present day.
Folk Art
Folk and Self-Taught art reflect an inherent creative impulse, expressing the essence of optimism, and the importance of visual communication for people of all generations. The Museum collects works by artists of the Southeast, and particularly Alabama, including an outstanding assemblage of over 60 quilts by makers active in West Alabama in the latter part of the twentieth century.