Tweed Museum of Art

The Tweed Museum of Art was established in 1950 when Alice Tweed Tuohy, widow of George P. Tweed, donated their house and approximately 500-piece American and European art collection to the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) to enrich the lives of the people comprised of the academic and civic communities of the region. Following its initial operation from 1950-58 (out of the Tweed home), a museum facility was constructed on the UMD campus in 1958, with funds donated primarily by Mrs. Tweed and her daughter, Bernice Brickson. The museum has been expanded and renovated four times between 1965 and 2008. Today, it operates in a 33,000 square-foot facility with 15,000 square feet of exhibit space and services an average of 33,000 visitors each year. Of great artistic, cultural, regional and historical significance, the collection is the focus of all museum activities. It contains 15th-21st century European, American and world art in all media by artists of regional, national and international importance, including outstanding work by artists from the Upper Midwest and Minnesota. In 2007, the museum acquired the Richard E. And Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of American Indian Art, an acquisition that opened new programmatic territories. By establishing a modestly comprehensive historical canon, the Nelson collection opened the museum to build upon it by collecting contemporary (particularly Woodland) American Indian arts.