Western art museum set to open

The Briscoe Western Art Museum features two buildings connected literally and metaphorically by bridges. The old existing Art Deco former Hertzberg Circus Museum (old main library before that), with its Indiana limestone skin, has been historically restored inside with galleries that will hold more than 700 artworks. It's connected to the modern Guenther Pavilion, designed by Lake / Flato, which has a limestone and copper exterior and a hipped roof with clerestory. less The Briscoe Western Art Museum features two buildings connected literally and metaphorically by bridges. The old existing Art Deco former Hertzberg Circus Museum (old main library before that), with its Indiana ... more Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Helen L. Montoya, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 50 Caption Close Western art museum set to open 1 / 50 Back to Gallery

The hundreds of people who have been straining to get a peek inside the Briscoe Western Art Museum finally will be able to walk through the doors when it opens to the public with a free celebration Oct. 26-27.

“We clean that door daily from nose prints,” Executive Director Steven M. Karr said, referring to the Market Street entrance that leads into the lobby of the historic building, an elegant space with marble floors and a soaring cast plaster coffered ceiling in copper, silver and gold.

The main building of the museum, named for former Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr., and the adjoining Jack Guenther Pavilion will be open during the event. Activities also will take place outdoors on the surrounding campus, which sits on the River Walk. The event will feature charros, trick ropers, a working chuck wagon, artist demonstrations and a hands-on children's area.

“We're just trying to create a festival-like atmosphere that's evocative and indicative of elements of the American West, artistically, culturally, historically,” Karr said. “Whether it is charrería or trick ropers, whether it's someone with a chuck wagon serving up peach cobbler out of a Dutch oven, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it resembles elements of the West that we all know.”

The museum is in the original site of the San Antonio main library, a building that more recently housed the Hertzberg Circus Museum.

Initially slated to open in 2009, the Briscoe project faced delays as the original design changed and grew, and the price tag correspondingly rose from $18 million in 2006 to $32 million.

More Information Briscoe Western Art Museum

To date, the museum has received nearly $7 million in taxpayer funds that include $6 million from the county — $4 million of that was approved by voters as part of the 2008 election to extend the county's venue tax — and about $1 million from the city.

The rest of the project funding has come from the private sector, including a $4 million donation from Briscoe, who died in 2010.

Going into its first year of operation, the museum is on solid financial footing, board chairwoman Debbie Montford said.

Restoration and construction costs are paid for, “we have operations covered, and we have a reserve,” she said. “While every nonprofit will tell you we never quit raising money, we're in a very good place to finish the museum. We have our operations taken care of certainly this year, probably next year.”

Karr estimates the museum's yearly operating expenses will be about $2.5 million, but revenues generated by rentals of the pavilion are expected to keep money flowing into the coffers.

“Part of the business model of this museum is the inclusion of the pavilion, because it's a dedicated revenue source,” he said. “Turnstiles at any museum — save the Metropolitan Museum (of Art in New York) — don't pay most of the bills. That's a common misconception that people have.”

The museum will feature a digital public library portal in partnership with the San Antonio Public Library. Visitors will be able to access material from the main library's Texana collection with iPads tethered to six chairs. The library will have its own admission-free entrance.

Installation of the museum collection is set to begin in earnest in mid- to late September, but the first piece of art visitors will see when they walk through the street entrance already is in place.

“Visions of Change,” a 13-foot-tall sculpture by artist John Coleman, will greet visitors in the lobby. The bronze depicts a buffalo hunt and a cattle drive joined in a double helix.

“It is not the story of the American West, but it is a story of the American West,” Karr said. “We very purposefully wanted it here in the lobby because very often when you walk into museums you ask yourself, 'Why am I here? What am I looking at? What is it about?' What we wanted to do was hit people over the head and let them understand: You're in a Western art museum, and this is what you're going to see when you're in here.”

The piece will be the only major art installation in the lobby, “because we wanted the lobby to also be architecture-as-art,” Karr said.

The lobby underwent extensive restoration.

“This is the most architecturally accurate room or gallery in the entire building,” he said. “With the exception of the travertine marble floor, (it) looks exactly as it did when the doors first opened to the Central Library in 1930.”

Art and artifacts will be displayed in the museum's nine galleries. Highlights include an abstract of Briscoe's home office, an interactive diorama of the Alamo, a presentation sword given to Santa Anna and Pancho Villa's last known saddle.

Each gallery will be organized around broad themes such as landscape, movement, opportunity and conflict.

“There is no real chronology in this museum,” Karr said. “When you work thematically rather than chronologically, it enables people to move freely through the museum.”

lsilva@express-news.net