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McNay Art Museum

One-line summary: Texas's first modern art museum (opened 1954), housed in Marion Koogler McNay's 24-room 1927–29 Spanish Colonial Revival mansion on 23 landscaped acres in north-central San Antonio, plus the 2008 Jean-Paul Viguier Stieren Center addition (45,000 sq ft of contemporary glass-walled exhibition space) — strong Post-Impressionist and early-modern holdings (Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, O'Keeffe, Hopper, Diebenkorn, Marsden Hartley, Mary Cassatt, Diego Rivera) plus the Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, one of the deepest stage-design and theater-history archives in the world (Bakst's Ballets Russes designs, Picasso's Parade, Hockney's Parade at the Met, Inigo Jones, original drawings from 1600 forward).

McNay Art Museum

One-line summary: Texas's first modern art museum (opened 1954), housed in Marion Koogler McNay's 24-room 1927–29 Spanish Colonial Revival mansion on 23 landscaped acres in north-central San Antonio, plus the 2008 Jean-Paul Viguier Stieren Center addition (45,000 sq ft of contemporary glass-walled exhibition space) — strong Post-Impressionist and early-modern holdings (Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, O'Keeffe, Hopper, Diebenkorn, Marsden Hartley, Mary Cassatt, Diego Rivera) plus the Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, one of the deepest stage-design and theater-history archives in the world (Bakst's Ballets Russes designs, Picasso's Parade, Hockney's Parade at the Met, Inigo Jones, original drawings from 1600 forward).

Scope note: this template covers steps 1–3 of the adventures pipeline (identify, support Maxine's research, shape goals). The deliverable webpage

  • video at step 6 is Maxine's own work — don't scaffold it here.

Links & Maps

Official:

Maps:

Reference & background:

Must-See / Big Items

The McNay's collection runs deep in early-modern and Post-Impressionist work, but the building and the Tobin theater-arts archive are equally the trip. Plan ~3–4 hours: 90 min for the mansion-and-permanent-collection, 45 min for the Tobin, 30 min for current special exhibitions in the Stieren Center, 30 min for the grounds and sculpture.

  1. The 1927–29 mansion itself — designed by Atlee B. Ayres and Robert M. Ayres (a Texas father-and-son architectural firm that designed much of period San Antonio), Spanish Colonial Revival, 24 rooms, courtyards, polychrome tile, ironwork, hand-painted ceilings. Marion McNay lived in it; she designed the layout with the explicit intention that it would eventually become a museum, and the original galleries inhabit the converted living rooms. Compare with the Kimbell (Kahn, modernist purpose-built) and SAMA (1884 brewery adaptive reuse) for a three-Texas-art-museum, three-radically-different-building architecture project.
  2. Paul Cézanne, Houses on the Hill (c. 1900–06) — one of his late Provence landscapes; the flattened-plane / faceted-shape language that's the bridge from Impressionism to Cubism. The McNay's anchor Cézanne.
  3. Vincent van Gogh, Women Crossing the Fields (1890) — painted in the last months of van Gogh's life at Auvers-sur-Oise. The colorism + the late, near-frantic brushwork; one of the best van Goghs in Texas.
  4. Paul Gauguin, Portrait of the Artist with the Idol (c. 1893) — Gauguin himself with one of the Polynesian carvings he obsessed over; mid-Tahiti period.
  5. Pablo Picasso holdings — the McNay has multiple Picassos across periods, including from the Tobin Theatre Arts collection his designs for the Ballets Russes' Parade (1917) — costumes and curtain designs for the Cocteau / Satie / Massine ballet that helped launch modernist stagecraft. (You can stand in front of Picasso's actual stage-design drawings.)
  6. Georgia O'Keeffe holdings — multiple O'Keeffes; the McNay's modernist American wing pairs O'Keeffe with Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, and Richard Diebenkorn. Strong moment for "what was modernism doing on this continent."
  7. The Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts — Robert L. B. Tobin's bequest. One of the largest and most important stage-design archives in the world — designs, costume drawings, set models, lithographs, prints, and books from 1500 to the present. Holds work by Léon Bakst (Ballets Russes' Schéhérazade costumes, his Nijinsky portraits), Pablo Picasso (Parade), Henri Matisse (Le Chant du Rossignol), Natalia Goncharova, David Hockney (1981 Met Opera Parade, with the Polaroids of staging tucked into the Satie score), Robert Wilson, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Louise Nevelson, and — yes — original drawings by Inigo Jones (court masque designs for the Stuart court, c. 1605–35). Almost nothing else like this in the US. Rotating exhibitions draw from this collection regularly.
  8. The 2008 Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions — designed by Jean-Paul Viguier (French, his first US commission). 45,000 sq ft, glass-walled, modernist, deliberately set behind the mansion so the historic facade dominates the entrance. Houses major special exhibitions, the Tobin Reading Room, and the AT&T Lecture Hall. Architectural compare-and-contrast: the McNay is doing the "preserve the historic + add a modern wing" move that the Louvre (Pei), Kimbell (Kahn + Piano), and Boston MFA (Foster) all do — pick a design decision (light, mass, transparency) and trace it across them.
  9. Diego Rivera holdings — Mexican modernism; Rivera and his Mexican muralist contemporaries are well represented. Pair with SAMA's Latin American collection same day for a serious Mexican-modernist thread.
  10. The Octagon and the Sculpture Grounds — 23 acres including a Japanese-inspired garden with fishpond, formal lawns, a small lake, outdoor sculpture (Henry Moore, Donald Judd, Robert Indiana, Joel Shapiro, others — verify current installation). Open daily 7am–dusk; usable even when the museum is closed. The grounds are a real-deal sculpture park, not a decorative add-on.

Stretch goals (do if time allows):

  • Look up which Tobin theater-arts piece is currently on rotation before arriving — the Tobin holdings rotate frequently and the specific pieces on the walls vary. Sometimes the standout is the Bakst, sometimes the Hockney, sometimes the Inigo Jones drawings; verify on the McNay site.
  • Visit during a free Thursday evening (4–9pm) to layer with a downtown San Antonio dinner — the 9pm close lets you do an unhurried evening visit.
  • Cross-reference with the Witte Museum (Alamo Heights, ~10 min south) for a same-day natural-history + art combo if Maxine has the energy.

Research angles for Maxine

The research is hers — list questions to investigate and sources to start from, not answers. Pitch above grade level.

Hook into Maxine's current interests: (ask before finalizing — what is she into right now? bend the questions to that. If she's currently on a theater / performance / set-design kick, the Tobin is the trip — entire visit is the Tobin and the rest is bonus. If she's on a painting / drawing kick, the Cézanne + Gauguin + van Gogh + O'Keeffe + Hopper anchors are the trip; sketch in front of each. If she's interested in women in art history, Marion McNay herself is the story — wealthy, twice-widowed by 35, trained painter, built one of the country's first modern-art museums in the 1940s and willed it to the public. If she's into Mexican modernism / Latin American art, pair with SAMA same day and have her trace Rivera / Orozco / Tamayo across both museums. If she's into architecture, do the McNay-Stieren / SAMA-Brewery / Kimbell-Kahn compare across three trips.)

Questions worth chasing:

  • Art: Cézanne's late landscapes (after ~1895) are doing something with surface and plane that nobody had quite done before — what specifically? Sketch Houses on the Hill yourself, then sketch a strict Impressionist landscape (any Monet) and identify three concrete differences in how each painter is constructing space. Pick a Picasso Parade design from the Tobin (1917) and a Picasso painting from the same period — what does Picasso do in a stage design that's different from what he does on canvas, and why? Why did the McNay open in 1954 as the first modern art museum in Texas when by then New York had had MoMA for 25 years — what does that say about how American modernism reached the regional cities?
  • Theater / Stagecraft: The Ballets Russes (Diaghilev's Paris company, 1909–29) commissioned painters and sculptors to design its sets and costumes (Bakst, Picasso, Matisse, Goncharova, Léger, Miró). Why was this such a productive collision, and why don't most modern theater productions hire visual artists at that level anymore? Look at Bakst's Schéhérazade costume (1911) and a Hockney Parade costume (1981) — same ballet treatment over 70 years; what's the same, what's different? Inigo Jones designed masques for the Stuart court in the early 1600s — what was a court masque, why did royalty pay enormous amounts for one performance, and how does that map onto how today's blockbuster Broadway productions are financed?
  • Architecture: The Ayres mansion (1927–29) is Spanish Colonial Revival — what was Spanish Colonial Revival doing in 1920s Texas, and what did it pretend to be a revival of (hint: the actual Spanish colonial Texas buildings looked nothing like this). The 2008 Stieren Center deliberately steps behind the mansion rather than dominating it; compare to how the Louvre Pyramid handles a similar problem at the Louvre — same move, or different? Pick one architectural decision (sightlines, light, material) and trace it across three Texas art museums: McNay, SAMA (brewery), Kimbell (Kahn).
  • History / Biography: Marion Koogler McNay (1883–1950) inherited oil and cattle money, married four times (the first husband died of influenza in WWI; the surviving museum bears his name), trained as a painter, and built one of the country's first museums of modern art on her own ranch. How does her path compare to Kay Kimbell (Fort Worth, also a Texas oil-and-cattle fortune turned museum, but founded by a man and run by his widow) and Dominique de Menil (Houston, French émigré modernist collector) — three Texas museum-founder stories, three different paths to a similar outcome? Why did Texas, of all places, produce three of America's most important small art museums?
  • Math / Geometry: Tile work and ironwork in the Ayres mansion uses Spanish/Moorish geometric patterns (stars, rosettes, interlace). Pick one tile pattern and decompose its underlying symmetry group (rotational order, reflection axes). Are there p3, p4, p6 wallpaper symmetries on the walls? The Stieren Center's floor plan: is it on a strict grid, and if so what's the module? Pace it off and find out.
  • Writing: Pick the Gauguin self-portrait and write three accounts of it: a 1893 viewer in Paris (who had never seen a Tahitian carving), a 1954 viewer at the McNay's opening (who had read Noa Noa), a 2026 viewer (who knows about colonialism and the ethical questions around Gauguin's Tahiti period). Same painting, three radically different readings — why?

Starting sources (not exhaustive — she'll find more):

Observable field goals

Goals Maxine can verify or document in the field at step 5 (confirm & document). Concrete things to look at, count, measure, identify, or photograph — not vague "learn about X."

  • Photograph the exterior of the Ayres mansion from the front entrance. Identify and photograph three specific Spanish Colonial Revival features (red-tile roof, polychrome tilework around a window or fountain, ironwork on a balcony, hand-carved wood, etc.).
  • Stand in front of Cézanne's Houses on the Hill and sketch it in the notebook. Compare to a sketch of any single Monet you find in the same room or elsewhere; write three sentences identifying differences in how each painter constructs depth.
  • Locate at least one Tobin Theatre Arts piece on display — photograph it and note (from the placard) the designer, the production it was made for, the year, and the venue. (Look specifically for Bakst, Picasso Parade, Hockney, or Inigo Jones if any are out.)
  • Photograph one work by each: a Post-Impressionist (Cézanne / Gauguin / van Gogh), an American modernist (O'Keeffe / Hopper / Hartley / Davis), a Mexican modernist (Rivera or contemporary), and a contemporary piece in the Stieren Center.
  • Walk into the central courtyard of the mansion and identify the tile pattern; sketch one tile motif. Identify (and photograph) the fishpond and the Japanese garden.
  • Photograph the transition point between the original 1929 mansion and the 2008 Stieren Center addition — note one design move Viguier makes that respects the mansion, and one that diverges from it.
  • In the sculpture grounds: identify and photograph at least three outdoor sculptures, including the artist + year (placards are on the lawn). At least one piece should be by a 20th-c. canonical sculptor (Henry Moore, Donald Judd, Robert Indiana, Joel Shapiro, etc. — verify current installation).

Suggested itinerary

Built as a half-day morning visit with same-day pairing options. If pairing with SAMA, do McNay morning + SAMA afternoon (McNay opens at 10, SAMA stays open later; reverse if visiting Tuesday when SAMA is open later and McNay is closed).

  1. 8:30 am — leave SW Austin. ~1.5 hr drive south on I-35.
  2. 10:00 am — arrive McNay at opening. Park free on-site. Start in the mansion: the original 1929 galleries, slow walk through the permanent collection. ~1.5 hr.
  3. 11:30 am — Stieren Center: current special exhibition, plus the Tobin theater-arts rotation. ~1 hr.
  4. 12:30 pm — outside: walk the sculpture grounds, find the Japanese garden and the fishpond, sit. ~30 min.
  5. 1:00 pm — lunch nearby. Cured at Pearl (~15 min south, charcuterie + sit-down) or any of the Alamo Heights / Olmos Park spots. ~1 hr.
  6. 2:00 pm — Option A: SAMA for the afternoon (~15 min south, ~3 hr). Option B: Witte Museum for natural history (~10 min south). Option C: Briscoe + Alamo on the River Walk (~20 min south).
  7. 5:00–6:00 pm — drive home, ~1.5 hr.

Family roles:

  • Chris leads: logistics, driving, the architecture thread (Ayres mansion / Stieren addition compare-and-contrast). Pairs well with Maxine on any geometry-of-tile work observation.
  • Heather leads: the painting thread — Cézanne / Gauguin / van Gogh / O'Keeffe slow looking; Mexican modernism if SAMA same day.
  • Maxine drives: which 5–6 individual paintings get her real time; whether the day includes the Tobin (it should — but the visit-shape depends on whether she's reading the trip as "painting day" or "theater day"). Owns the sketchbook.
  • Solo vs. both parents: either parent solo works well — McNay is small enough to share a single docent's pace with a 12-year-old. Both parents along is also fine, especially if combining with SAMA same day.

Connections

Combines well with:

  • San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) — natural same-day pair. McNay morning (opens 10, encyclopedic-modernist), SAMA afternoon (Latin American + Asian + Mediterranean). Or do the Tuesday SAMA-evening / Wednesday McNay split if you have two days.
  • Briscoe Western Art Museum — Western-art counterpoint on the River Walk; very different museum lane.
  • The Alamo + San Antonio Missions NHP — civic-history pair; do as a different trip.
  • Witte Museum — natural-history pair in Alamo Heights, ~10 min south of the McNay.
  • Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth — the comparative-collectors project: McNay (Marion Koogler McNay, oil-and-cattle, opened 1954, founder-named) vs. Kimbell (Kay and Velma Kimbell, grain-and-insurance, opened 1972, husband-and-wife founders). Both are "ambitious-collector turns Texas oil money into a world-class small museum."

Feeds into home projects / future adventures:

  • A Ballets Russes mini-project anchored on the Tobin's Bakst / Picasso / Hockney holdings: watch a contemporary production of The Rite of Spring (or Schéhérazade, or Parade); read about Diaghilev's commissioning model; sketch a costume design of her own for a chosen ballet.
  • A theater / opera design project: pick a Shakespeare play and design the set and costumes herself, after studying historical sets at the Tobin. Pair with Austin Lyric Opera or any UT theater production.
  • A Mexican modernism arc: McNay (Rivera) → SAMA (Rockefeller Latin American collection) → Mexic-Arte in Austin → a possible Mexico City trip in the future.
  • A three-museum-architecture project: McNay (Ayres + Viguier), Kimbell (Kahn + Piano), SAMA (1884 Brewery + 1998/2005 additions) — pick one design problem (light, mass, transition between historic and new) and trace it.
  • A Marion McNay biography mini-project — Maxine writes a 1,500-word profile from the available archival sources, including the question of how a woman with that much agency in 1940s Texas managed to build a museum.

Open questions / still to research (Chris's side)

  • Verify hours and admission pricing on our travel date — recent change to Wed–Sun (formerly Tue–Sun); confirm at mcnayart.org/visit.
  • Confirm specific Tobin Theatre Arts works on rotation on our date — the standout pieces vary; check mcnayart.org/exhibition.
  • Confirm current special exhibition in the Stieren Center on our date — book timed tickets if a major show is on.
  • Decide whether to add SAMA same day (lean yes, if energy holds — both museums close at 5pm Wed/Fri/Sat).
  • If doing free Thursday evening (4–9pm), book a downtown San Antonio dinner.
  • Pre-read with Maxine: which 5–6 works she most wants real time with (paintings vs. Tobin material vs. sculpture grounds — the trip shape depends on this).
  • Sketchbook prep: Maxine should bring a fresh page set up for at least three drawing slots (Cézanne, one Tobin piece, one tile pattern).
  • San Antonio parking + traffic: McNay parking is free, but Loop 410 traffic between 4–6pm is bad — leave San Antonio by 4pm or after 6:30pm to avoid the worst.