Blanton Museum of Art

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin was established in 1963 and is one of the foremost university art museums in the country. It has the largest and most comprehensive collection of art in Central Texas, recognized for its European paintings, an encyclopedic collection of prints and drawings, and modern and contemporary art from the United States and Latin America. Noted among the comprehensive array of more than 21,000 objects are works by Rubens, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Raphael, Thomas Gainsborough, Leonora Carrington, Diego Rivera, Wifredo Lam, Thomas Hart Benton, Helen Frankenthaler and Zanele Muholi. A robust exhibition program that includes major traveling exhibitions establishes the Blanton as a cultural destination. In 2015, Ellsworth Kelly gifted the museum the design concept for “Austin,” his only building. The immersive chapel for art — a joyous, contemplative space defined by natural light filtered through colored glass — opened on the museum’s campus to much acclaim in 2018. In 2024, the museum completed a renovation and expansion of its grounds and entry, adding public art, native landscaping, performance venues and community gathering space that encourages visitors to spend time and interact with the environment.