The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School

Hudson River school

The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...

, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism

American Impressionism

Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...

, the Ashcan School

Ashcan School

The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...

, early modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, regionalism

Regionalism (art)

Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...

, and post World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 modern and contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

.

The museum is situated on an 80-foot bluff overlooking the Tennessee River

Tennessee River

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...

 and downtown Chattanooga. The building itself represents three distinct architectural stages: the original 1904 classical revival

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 mansion which has housed the museum since its opening in 1952, a brutalist addition built in 1975, and a 2005 addition designed by Randall Stout

Randall Stout

-Early life and education:Born and raised in Tennessee, Stout has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee and a Master of Architecture from Rice University.-Career:...

 which now serves as the entrance to the museum. With the 2005 expansion, the Hunter extended toward downtown. The Ruth S. and A. William Holmberg Pedestrian Bridge provides a pedestrian-friendly connection to the nearby Walnut Street Bridge

Walnut Street Bridge (Tennessee)

The Walnut Street Bridge is a truss bridge that spans the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, Tennessee.Built in 1890, it was the first to connect Chattanooga's downtown with the North Shore. According to the plaque on the bridge, Edwin Thatcher was the chief engineer for the bridge...

 and riverfront attractions. The glass bridge allows pedestrians to cross over Riverside Drive.

The Hunter Museum is named after George Hunter

George Hunter (Coca-Cola bottler)

George Thomas Hunter was a businessman and philanthropist in Chattanooga, Tennessee who inherited and ran the Coca-Cola Bottling empire from his uncle Benjamin Thomas. Hunter's most notable philanthropic efforts is the creation of The Benwood Foundation and The Hunter Museum of American Art...

 who inherited the Coca-Cola Bottling empire from his uncle Benjamin Thomas

Benjamin Thomas (Coca-Cola bottler)

Benjamin Franklin Thomas was a Chattanooga, Tennessee businessman and industrialist who pioneered the development of the Coca-Cola bottling industry and founded the Coca-Cola Bottling Company....

.

External links

• Hunter Museum of American Art website