Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by the industrialist Joseph H. Hirshhorn and presented by him to the nation in 1966. Opened in 1974, it is the capital city's first museum devoted exclusively to modern art. The building is a circular, windowless slab of concrete faced with pink granite. The sculpture garden extends from the glass-walled interior courtyard of the building; it contains a shallow pool and a fountain surrounded by masterworks of 19th- and 20th-century sculpture that are considered the chief strength of the collection. The painting collection is especially strong in works by Eakins and examples of pop art, op art, color-field painting, and the new realism. In addition to works from the collection and new acquisitions, temporary exhibitions organized in collaboration with other museums are presented. The museum's full name is the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. Collection of modern painting and sculpture founded by Joseph H. Hirshhorn (1899–1981), a Latvian immigrant to the USA, and presented to his adopted country in 1966. It is administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Hirshhorn left Latvia at the age of 6 and fulfilled the rags-to-riches American dream, his enormous fortune being made mainly from uranium mining. He began collecting in the early 1930s, relying entirely on his own instincts—if he liked an artist's work he tried to buy as much of it as possible. The collection extends from about 1880 to contemporary art and is particularly strong in sculpture, in American painting, and in European painting since the Second World War. Highlights include about 40 de Koonings and about 50 Henry Moores. The museum building was designed by one of the USA's leading architects, Gordon Bunshaft (of the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), and was opened to the public in 1974. It consists of a huge concrete drum raised above a plaza on four massive piers. The museum is linked by an underground passage to the sculpture garden on the opposite side of Jefferson Drive. Hirshhorn gave the trustees of the museum the freedom to add or dispose of the works as they saw fit, and the collection continues to expand.

Washington, DC, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. See HIRSHHORN.