Enter the museum grounds by turning in at the North New Braunfels Avenue entrance and parking. You'll see the McNay mansion looming above you in all its 1920s elegance. Go in to through the lobby, formerly the mansion's entry hall, pay your admission and you can wander at will. A good idea is to start going counter-clockwise.
Turn right and you'll first enter the Pitman Mays Gallery where Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works are displayed, including Monet's "Nympheas" and van Gogh's "Women Crossing the Fields." The Zoch Gallery features Early Impressionism, and the Zilker Gallery features Post-Impressionism. Next up are the two Lang Galleries, the first displaying Early Twentieth-Century Modernist works and the second American Modernism. You'll now find yourself at the Special Event Entrance or Octagon, which is a reception room and leads to the AT&T Lobby of the Jane & Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions, which opened in 2008. Designed by architect Jean-Paul Viguier, it offers 45,000 square feet of exhibition space, filled with gentle, screened light. The two-level wing includes the Tobin Gallery, designed for traveling exhibitions, a sculpture gallery featuring works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a terrace showcasing sculpture done after 1945, the two Valero learning centers, five cases displaying decorative arts, the Charles Butt Paperworks Gallery, another sculpture gallery and the Chiego Lecture Hall.
Take some time in the Museum Store in the AT&T Lobby, then go back through the Octagon, passing the Leeper Auditorium on the right, and turn left into the Frost Galleries, which showcase art after 1945. To the left of these is the Lawson Print Gallery, which includes such works as Mary Cassatt's "The Coiffure" and "The Letter," Jasper Johns' "Decoy II" and "Ventriloquist," Diego Rivera's "Fruits of the Earth" and Cy Twombly's "Untitled" from 1971. From here the Frost Galleries, to the west, is a changing gallery with more art done after 1945.
Proceed next to the Blackburn Patio. You will have seen glimpses of it from the various galleries and are probably curious as to what it's like. It is shaded with palm trees and filled with plants, while ornamental tiles cover the ground and walls. There's an outdoor fireplace which was a central gathering point at evening get-togethers during Mrs. McNay's lifetime. A tiled staircase leads to a second floor gallery. Over at the east end of the patio, water bubbles from a lion's mouth set in a low wall, then proceeds down a shallow, tiled watercourse into the central fountain, which is shaped like the famous Rose Window at San Antonio's Mission San Jose. Important pieces on display in the patio are Charles Umlauf's "Crucifix" and "War Mother," Barbara Hepworth"s "Cantate Domino," Anna Hyatt Huntington's "Abraham Lincoln on the Prairie" and "Don Quixote" and Pierre Auguste Renoir's "The Washerwoman."
Go through the doorway at the southwestern corner back into the Lobby and turn right into the former Dining Room, which now features nineteenth-century European Art. Pass through iron gates and step down into the airy, window-lined Brown Sculpture Pavilion. To the right of this is the Brown Gallery, a gallery for changing exhibits. A tall door leads into the book-lined Tobin Gallery of Theatre Arts, which is filled with designs by Léon Bakst, David Hockney, Edward Gordon Craig and Pablo Picasso, as well as maquettes of stage sets. A spiral staircase leads downstairs to the Museum Library.
Retrace your steps through the Brown Gallery, Brown Sculpture Pavilion and the former Dining Room and go back into the lobby and ascend the tiled main staircase. Straight ahead at the top of the stairs is the Orientation Gallery, where you can learn more about Mrs. McNay and her collection. Blueprints of the original house hang on the wall.
Exit the Orientation Gallery and turn right, where the suite of Hamon Galleries displays Southwestern art. To the left of the Orientation Gallery are two rooms devoted to Southwestern Art that was connected with Mrs. McNay, including Native American and New Mexican Spanish pieces. Beyond this are the three Oppenheimer Galleries, which display Medieval and Renaissance artwork, including altar pieces, choir stalls, linenfold paneling, stained glass and images of the Virgin Mary. These rooms are connected by a shady loggia which afford excellent views of the patio.
Explore the grounds surrounding the museum, which include fountains, terraces, a Japanese garden and sculptures by such artists as Joel Shapiro, Tony Smith, Alexander Liberman and George Rickey. Also on the grounds is the Jones building, which houses the Teacher Resource Center for Visual Art.
