Well, OU has finally completed the addition to its art museum. I can't wait to see it!

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"OU to unveil its new art museum
Posted: Monday, December 27, 2004
OKCBusiness NewsWire

The University of Oklahoma will open its new facility, the Mary and Howard Lester Wing of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Jan. 21, 2005. The wing provides 34,000 square feet of space and much of it is dedicated to recently acquired paintings by Claude Monet, Camille Pissaro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierce Bonnard and others.

“There is no question that this museum has one of the best university collections, public or private, in the United States,” museum director Eric Lee said. “People from around the country already travel to this region to see the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas and many others in this region.

“I believe that with our new building, we are going to give visitors a remarkable encounter with great art and great architecture, which is going to add the university’s museum to this cultural itinerary.”

Over the past 10 years, OU has invested more than $700 million in campus construction projects. The new Mary and Howard Lester Wing was built at an estimated cost of $14 million. The wing is a suite of nine identically-sized pavilions, organized in a square and linked to one another by corridors of limestone and unframed glass. This scheme provides residential-scale galleries for the artworks, while establishing a continual visual interplay between interior and exterior spaces.

The ground floor of the wing features galleries dedicated to the Weitzenhoffer Collection, American art, Asian art and a select number of works of African sculpture."