Bessie Vance Brooks

Birth:  1854 Death:  Dec. 5, 1943 Daytona Beach Volusia County Florida, USA In 1913, Bessie Vance Brooks donated $100,000 to the City of Memphis for the construction of a museum in honor of her late husband, Samuel Hamilton Brooks. The Brooks Memorial Art Gallery opened to the public in 1916. The Beaux Arts style building, inspired by the Morgan Library in New York City, was designed by James Gamble Rogers and constructed of Georgian marble. The museum was enlarged in 1955 to secure a gift of thirty-two objects from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which was dependent upon sufficient gallery space to exhibit the artworks. To accommodate the continuing growth of the permanent collection, a further expansion was completed in 1973. In 1983, the institution's name was changed to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and in 1989 the Brooks separated from the city becoming fully private, although the city retains ownership of the building and the bulk of the collection acquired up to that time. The final, award-winning addition, which replaced the 1955 wing, opened in 1989. Family links:  Spouse:   Samuel Hamilton Brooks (1834 - 1912)   Burial: Elmwood Cemetery  Memphis Shelby County Tennessee, USA Created by: Vincent Astor Record added: Jul 15, 2011  Find A Grave Memorial# 73384513

Added by: Vincent Astor   Added by: Vincent Astor   Added by: Vincent Astor

Bessie Vance Brooks

Artist: Katherine (Kate) Augusta Carl, American, 
b. ca. 1850-1938

Signed: LL: K. A. Carl. Artist was born in Memphis and returned periodically in the late 19th century.

Birthdate:	Circa: 1854
Death:	Died: 1943
Immediate Family: Daughter of:    Wife of:  Samuel Hamilton Brooks, Brooks Museum of Art

Memphis Brooks Museum Of Art

The "Memphis Brooks Museum of Art", which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee (United States). Fernando Botero's "Smoking Woman" is looking to the "Three Graces" of Memphis.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is an art museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The Brooks Museum, which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. The museum is a privately funded nonprofit institution located in Overton Park in Midtown Memphis.

History And Structure:

The original Beaux-Arts building, a registered U.S. National Landmark designed by James Gamble Rogers in 1913, was donated by Bessie Vance Brooks in memory of her husband, Samuel Hamilton Brooks. The cylindrical extension, opened in 1955, was designed by Memphis architect Everett Woods.^[2] The Brooks’ facilities also include the Brooks Museum Store, the Brushmark Restaurant, the Holly Court garden, and a grand terrace that overlooks the greens and trees of Overton Park. In 1989, the building was expanded and reoriented by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The expansion, which doubled the square footage of the existing building, included a new public entrance as well as a three-story gallery space where the old and new buildings join.

The facility consists of 29 galleries, art classrooms, a print study room with over 4,500 works of art on paper, a research library with over 5,000 volumes, and an auditorium. The collection has over seven thousand works of art, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and examples of the decorative arts. Of particular note are the Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, the Hugo N. Dixon Collection of Impressionist paintings, the Levy Collection of American prints, the Goodman Book Collection, and the Goodheart Collection of Carl Gutherz paintings, drawings, and archival material.

Recessed loggia entrance behind a Serlian screen of the original building by James Gamble Rogers, 1915.
Permanent Collection:

Paintings in the permanent collection include works by Italian Renaissance, Baroque, Impressionist, and 20th-century artists. The Kress Collection is one of numerous collections of paintings distributed by this philanthropist among American museums. The Brooks also has a fine collection of English portraits, including works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Lawrence, and Romney. There are impressionist works by Camille Pissarro, Renoir, and many American impressionists: Winslow Homer, Thomas Hart Benton, Childe Hassam, and Robert Henri. The contemporary collection includes paintings by Kenneth Noland, Robert Motherwell, and Nancy Graves, plus the nationally-known Memphis artist Carroll Cloar.

The Brooks Museum also conserves a selection of 19th and 20th century sculpture and decorative arts, including furniture and textiles.

External Links: 

• Official website