The McNay Art Museum is an interesting place in that it is housed in the home of the late Marion Koogler McNay. Marion was a studious art collector that left her large collection of fine art, mansion and much of her earnings all to be used to advance the fine arts in San Antonio. The McNay was the first fine arts museum in all of Texas, opening in 1954, and now houses well over ten thousand pieces of art.
The majority of the work housed at the McNay Art Museum is American and European paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries. Along with the normal art collection, the museum also houses a variety of special exhibitions throughout the year and is also home to a library with tens of thousands of volumes, a three-hundred seat auditorium and a gift shop.
