Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth a visual delight

A beautiful silver and glass building cut into Fort Worth’s Cultural District, the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth features more than 2,600 significant works of modern and contemporary international art. At 53,000 square feet, it is one of the largest gallery spaces in the United States dedicated to modern and contemporary works of art.

The Modern Art Museum maintains one of the foremost collections of post-World War II art in the central United States, with thought-provoking pieces that include paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, plus video and digital images.

Many large outdoor pieces also call the Modern home. One of the most prominent  outdoor pieces is Conjoined by Roxy Paine, a stunning 40-foot-tall by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture of two trees whose branches seem to have reached out to each other and grown together.

Ironically, the Modern is oldest art museum in the state of Texas, and one of the oldest museums in the western United States. It has gone through many incarnations since its founding charter in 1892. Originally located in downtown Fort Worth, the Modern moved to the Cultural District in 1954. In the early 1970s, Texas architects O’Neil Ford and Associates designed an extensive new addition for the Museum, which reopened in 1974.

A new Cultural District site was purchased for the Modern in 1996 with a generous grant from The Burnett Foundation. In May 1997, Tadao Ando of Osaka, Japan, was chosen to design the new Modern Art Museum. To date, the museum is Ando’s largest project completed outside of Japan.

The Modern’s 11-acre home consists of five long, flat-roofed pavilions situated on a two-acre reflecting pond. By night, the museum’s concrete walls are illuminated to make the transparent glass and steel galleries look like large lanterns floating on the pond.

The museum’s auditorium seats 250 and plays host to numerous lectures, film festivals and musical performances. The auditorium provides a great showcase for the Modern’s popular lecture series, Tuesday Evenings at the Modern.

The museum frequently hosts community and business groups in the auditorium in combination with the adjacent 250-seat cafe, with its full-service kitchen and outdoor dining terrace that overlooks the reflecting pond. 

An Education Center in the Modern includes one studio and two classrooms for hands-on art activities and lectures. The museum offers docent led-tours for groups and field trip visits. Group organizers can contact the tour coordinator at (817) 840-2119 or by e-mail at tours@themodern.org.

Admission ranges from $10 for adults (13 plus), $4 for students with ID and seniors (60 plus). There's no charge for children 12 and under or for Modern members. Admission is free to all every Wednesday and the first Sunday of every month.

The Modern is located directly opposite the Kimbell Art Museum and near the Amon Carter Museum.

The museum’s website offers generous amounts of information including interactive pieces like Modern Podcasts and a regular blog.

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