The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is an art museum in Nashville, Tennessee, housed in the city's historic U.S. Post Office building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
The museum is housed in a white marble building that was built in the 1930s to serve as Nashville's main post office. Designed by Marr & Holman Architects, it was built in 1933-34. Its location near Union Station was convenient for mail distribution, since most mail at that time was moved by train.
By the 1980s, downtown was no longer a good location for postal distribution. When a new main post office was built near the airport in 1986, the historic old facility became a downtown branch using only a small portion of one floor.
In the early 1990s Thomas F. Frist, Jr., and his family, through the charitable Frist Foundation, identified the post office building, an example of Art Deco and Stripped Classicism style, as a good location for a proposed downtown art museum. The Foundation implemented a public-private venture between the foundation, the U.S. Postal Service, and the city of Nashville. In 1999 the City of Nashville acquired the building from the U.S. Postal Service for the purpose of creating the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, paying $4.4 million. The city contributed $15 million toward renovation of the building, and the Frist Foundation and Frist family contributed $25 million for the renovation and to start an endowment for the art museum. The city owns the building, but granted the Frist Center a 99-year lease for $1 per year. A renovated post office branch was opened in the basement in 1999.
The museum opened in April 2001. The art center consists of approximately 24,000 square feet (2,200Â m2) of gallery space, used to present visual art from local, state and regional artists, as well as major U.S. and international exhibitions.
Exhibition and Program Information
As a non-collecting museum, the Frist Center does not have a permanent collection; rather, the museum focuses on creating exhibitions as well as securing traveling exhibitions from around the country and the world.
Information regarding past, current and future exhibitions is found on the Frist Center's website: http://fristcenter.org/ Each exhibition page contains detailed information about exhibition-related programs and an array of resources, including gallery guides, audio guides, videos and additional information from varying sources.
Fristkids.org is a family-friendly Frist Center site that contains a wealth of information for families and young artists. Included on this site is a series of videos produced in conjunction with Nashville Public Television. Art is All Around You is an Emmy Award-winning series that invites young artists to learn about art as they move through and look at their own worlds. Each video introduces and explores an art idea -- movement, shape, shadow, public art, pattern, color, visiting a museum. Details for a related art activity are included with every video, so young artists and their families can learn more about art as they share an art-making experience.
References
External links
- Official Frist Center for the Visual Arts website
