McMaster Museum of Art
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| Established | 1967: McMaster Art Gallery 1994: McMaster Museum of Art |
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| Location | McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario |
| Coordinates | 43°15′46″N 79°55′05″W / 43.26266°N 79.91803°W |
| Type | Art Museum |
| Website | Official website |
The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) is a non-profit public art gallery at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The museum is located in the heart of the campus, attached to Mills Memorial Library and close to the McMaster Student Centre.
McMaster University was founded in 1887, in Toronto, and the art collection began soon after as portraits of presidents and faculty accumulated. A donation of European prints by the Carnegie Institute in the 1930s led to more systematic collecting and programming. By the 1950s, regular art exhibitions were presented on campus in Mills Memorial Library.
In 1967, with the help of the Chair of the History Department, Dr. Togo Salmon, the McMaster Art Gallery was given a purpose-built facility in the east wing of Togo Salmon Hall. The Gallery moved across campus to its present larger location where it opened to the public under a new name, the McMaster Museum of Art, on June 11, 1994. Five year's later the building was renamed the Alvin A. Lee Building in honour of President Emeritus Alvin A. Lee, an influential champion of the MMA, whose efforts helped make the current building possible.
The MMA offers year-round exhibits consisting of historical, modern and contemporary art. In addition to hosting a graduate studio art class exhibit, the MMA also hosts a variety of public events including lunch and learn sessions, artist talks and workshops. The MMA's Education Gallery serves as a multipurpose room for lectures and study and is home to the Museum’s modest library made up of books, artist’s files and exhibition catalogues.
The MMA belongs to the Ontario Association of Art Galleries reciprocal program, through which members of participating galleries receive free admission to all galleries.
Many faculty members and the Wentworth House Art Committee, established to acquire contemporary Canadian and European art, guided the growth of the collection. Professors Karl Denner (German Department) and George Wallace (Art and Art History Department) are credited with the advancement of the German Expressionist art collection in the early 1960s.
The donation of over 200 European works in the 1980s by Hamilton jeweler Herman Levy O.B.E. put the Museum on the map in the Canadian art scene. He later bequeathed $15.25 million to the Museum with specific directions that the money must be spent within five years, on acquisition of art of non-North American origins. More recently, the Donald Murray Shepherd Trust provided funds for the purchase of contemporary European art from notable artists such as David Bomberg, Christian Rohlfs, and Natalia Goncharova.
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