Marion Koogler McNay

Marion Koogler McNay (7 February 1883 – 13 April 1950), was an American painter, art collector, and art teacher who inherited a substantial oil fortune upon the death of her parents. She later willed her fortune to be used to establish San Antonio's first museum of modern art, which today bears her name. Inspired by Modern, Impressionistic, and American art, she used her wealthy background to cultivate her eclectic art collection. McNay was able to design her San Antonio home after moving there in 1926. As soon as McNay moved to San Antonio, she began buying and commissioning art pieces. The Spanish styled house was able to showcase a diverse amount of paintings, including both American and European styled art. McNay favored art made in the Southwestern American style. The fortune she inherited funded her art collection that included over seven hundred works by 1950, the year of her death. McNay's home, art collection, property, and an endowment were left to the city of San Antonio after her death. McNay's goal was to provide the people of San Antonio "a place of beauty with the comforts and warmth of a home."

Marriages Marion married her first husband, railway manager and sergeant Don McNay, in 1917. He died ten months later from the Spanish influenza in 1918. She first visited Texas when Don McNay was stationed in Laredo during World War I. In 1926, she moved to San Antonio, Texas, where she married prominent ophthalmologist Donald T. Atkinson, who owned a piece of land north of San Antonio, Texas known as Sunset Hills. Marion and Donald were both wealthy, and her oil inheritance was not affected during the Great Depression. After her marriage with Donald ended in 1936, she went on to marry (and divorce) four more times, afterwards changing her surname back to McNay for the remainder of her life.

Teaching In 1915, the superintendent of the city schools of Marion, Ohio wrote that she was "one of the best qualified art teachers I have ever known. She teaches art in a manner that arouses and develops the child's observation and enlarges his aesthetic nature. " McNay was an avid supporter of the academic pursuit of the arts throughout her life. In 1942, she offered the use of an unused aviary on her property to the San Antonio Art Institute, so that the school did not have to close. Her friend and collaborator, sculptor Charles Umlauf, said that she "always had the sympathy of the artist at hand because she herself was an artist". She also began to accumulate a significant collection of artwork. The first oil painting she purchased was Diego Rivera's Delfina Flores. She collected a large number of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art as well as works created by early 20th-century modernists including Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall. She also bought a number of Southwestern santos and retablos. This was the first museum of its kind in San Antonio and the southwest region of the United States. The museum was named to recognize and honor Marion and has been considered the centerpiece of San Antonio art community and culture. The museum has expanded to include galleries of medieval and Renaissance artwork and a larger collection of 20th-century European and American modernist work. A large theatre arts library and gallery were also added, as well as an art reference library and an auditorium. In 2008, the Stieren Center was added to the original building by internationally renowned architect Jean-Paul Viguier to create additional gallery space for large-scale and traveling exhibitions.