The Joslyn Art Museum, commonly referred to as the Joslyn, is a fine arts museum in Omaha, Nebraska, the largest in the state. It opened in 1931 at the initiative of Sarah H. Joslyn, in memory of her husband, businessman George A. Joslyn. Since its opening, the museum has gone through several expansions, the last of which was completed in 2024. The Joslyn is home to the Margre H. Durham Center for Western Studies, established in 1980, which stewards two of the most important collections of works by Western artists Karl Bodmer and Alfred Jacob Miller in the country.

History

George and Sarah Joslyn

Originally from Vermont, George and Sarah Joslyn moved to Des Moines, Iowa in 1879 for George's new printing job at the Iowa Printing Company, which involved manual labor. He then founded his own company, called the Western Newspaper Union, which soon became the largest supplier of "ready print" newspapers and provided news for 12,000 people within the United States. This is the period during which he gained most of his wealth. but plans for the building started to come together much earlier, in 1920. In 1938, the Memorial was listed as one of the one hundred finest buildings in the United States. HDR Inc. and the Kiewit construction company worked together to build this addition. The gardens opened in the summer of 2009, featuring work from local and national artists as well as a reflecting pool and waterfall.

thumb|150px|right|The museum's entry atrium, in Hawks Pavilion.Announced in 2018, the most recent addition to the Joslyn Art Museum, the Rhonda and Howard Hawks Pavilion, has added 42,000 sq. ft. of space to the museum. The architecture firm Snøhetta and local architecture company Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture worked together to design the new addition. This new space includes galleries, classrooms, a new gift shop, and multi-purpose community rooms. Free admission continued until 1965, when an entry fee of 25 cents per person was instituted. As of the museum's reopening in 2024, admission remained free.

Permanent collection

The Joslyn Art Museum permanent collection includes:

  • Ancient: A collection of Greek pottery and various statues of Greek, Roman and Egyptian origin. over 110 works by painter Alfred Jacob Miller, illustrating the West in the 1830s, constituting the third largest collection of works by Miller in the United States, behind the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa.

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File:Karl Bodmer Omaha Boy 1833.jpg|Karl Bodmer, Omaha Boy, 1833

File:Karl Bodmer White Castles on the Missouri.jpg|Karl Bodmer, White Castles on the Missouri, 1833

File:Karl Bodmer View of the Stone Walls 1833.jpg|Karl Bodmer, View of the Stone Walls, 1833

File:Karl Bodmer Hotokáneheh Piegan Blackfeet Man 1833.jpg|Karl Bodmer, Hotokáneheh, Piegan Blackfeet Man, 1833

File:Karl Bodmer First Chain of the Rocky Mountains above Fort McKenzie.jpg|Karl Bodmer, First Chain of the Rocky Mountains above Fort McKenzie, 1833

File:Karl Bodmer Upsichtä́, Mandan Man 1834.jpg|Karl Bodmer, Upsichtä́, Mandan Man, 1834

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  • Latin American: Prominent works in this collection include paintings of saint figures and pottery from Felix Ortiz.
  • Asian: Consists mainly of ancient Chinese sculpture from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, as well as Japanese decorative arts of the 19th and 20th centuries.