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| Established | 1905 |
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| Location | 135 Meeting Street Charleston, South Carolina 32°46′43″N 79°55′54″W / 32.77861°N 79.93167°W |
| Director | Todd Smith |
| Curator | Angela Mack |
| Website | Museum's Homepage |
Formerly known as the Gibbes Art Gallery, the Gibbes Museum of Art is an art museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the museum moved into a new Beaux Arts building at 135 Meeting Street, in the Charleston Historic District, in 1905. The Gibbes houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works of fine art, principally American works, many with a connection to Charleston or the South.
The benefactor, James Shoolbred Gibbes, donated $100,000 to the Carolina Arts Association upon his death in 1899 for the "erection of a suitable building for the exhibitions of paintings." Receipt of the money by the city, however, was delayed by a will contest filed by nieces and nephews of Gibbes. Their case was heard in the state court of New York during 1900 and 1901. On December 6, 1901, the New York Supreme Court (the state's trial-level court) issued an opinion declaring that the gift to Charleston was valid.[1][2]
Receiving the money in 1903, the Association hired Frank Pierce Milburn to design the gallery. His design included a Tiffany-style dome, Doric columns and pediment capped windows and doors. Milburn completed the drawings of the building in mid-1903, and a drawing of the proposed building appeared in the Charleston Evening Post on June 5, 1903.[3] Notices were published seeking contractors' bids for the work starting in August 1903.[4] Although work on the foundations had begun already, a ceremony was held on December 8, 1903, to lay the cornerstone of the building at the northeast corner.[5]
The museum's collections include the work of numerous artists with connections to Charleston; among them are Henrietta Johnston, Mary Roberts, Charles Fraser, and Jeremiah Theus.
