May 16, 1990

The board of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts adopted a new acquisitions policy that defined the focus of its collection as American art, Old Master prints and works from artists in Alabama and the Southeast. According to the policy, “the quality of the work” and the “relationship to the existing collections” would be the most important criteria for adding new pieces to the museum collection. The museum was founded in 1930 and originally featured art by Alabama artists and works related to the state. In the years since the current policy was adopted, the museum has added major collections of Old Master prints and American art, among other works. Accessibility has been improved as well, the result of incorporating digital technologies.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

“Lookin’ Good! Lookin’ Good!,” a site-specific sculpture by Patrick Dougherty near the entrance of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art. The work was constructed in March 2009 and exhibited through May 2010. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Young visitors use an educational program on computers at the ArtWorks center in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Montgomery County, in February 2010. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.