About the museum
The story of the Kimbell Art Museum
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, opened in 1972 to show the collection of the industrialist Kay Kimbell. Louis Kahn's vaulted building, washed with natural light, is one of the most admired museum buildings of the twentieth century.
Its collection is small but of exceptional quality, with Michelangelo's earliest known painting, Caravaggio, Velázquez, Rembrandt and Cézanne.
The collection
Kay and Velma Kimbell set up a foundation to create 'a museum of the first class'. Rather than a large collection, the museum has bought fewer than 400 objects of exceptional quality.
They include Michelangelo's The Torment of Saint Anthony, believed to be his first painting, Caravaggio's The Cardsharps, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Monet and Picasso, as well as ancient and Asian art.
At ArtLogia you can order 32 of its paintings as hand-painted reproductions, by 30 artists led by El Greco, Gustave Courbet and Caravaggio.
- paintings to order
- 32
- artists
- 30
- art movements
- 12
- years covered
- 1310–1946
The building
Louis Kahn's building of 1972 is made of a series of cycloid concrete vaults with narrow skylights that spread soft daylight across the galleries. It is often called one of the most beautiful museum buildings in the world.
Masterpieces to see
Planning a visit
Admission to the permanent collection is free; Renzo Piano's pavilion opposite holds the exhibitions.
