Permanent Collection

The Masur Museum of Art has been building its collection since its opening in 1963. Our first acquisition came a year later, when a work by Ida Kohlmeyer, then a regional artist and now celebrated nationally, was purchased after her submission to the museum’s inaugural Juried Competition. Kohlmeyer, who trained under Mark Rothko and worked in the lineage of Abstract Expressionism, set an early precedent for the collection’s balance of regional and international relevance. Over the decades, generous gifts, estate donations, and acquisitions from our annual Juried Competition tradition have brought the museum works by world-renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Auguste Rodin, and Käthe Kollwitz. Alongside these canonical figures, the museum also highlights significant American voices including Thomas Hart Benton, Fairfield Porter, and Leon Golub. Equally vital are the Louisiana artists whose work bridges local identity with national recognition: Lynda Benglis, George Rodrigue, George Dunbar, and Kohlmeyer among them. Together, these holdings reflect the museum’s commitment to situating regional art within a broader national and international conversation.