Uninformed residents of LA and NYC might scoff at the suggestion that Houston is one of America’s premier cities for fine art.  But the cultural loss would be theirs, for having never visited the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, one of the country’s largest and most impressive art museums, founded nearly a century ago and defiantly far from either coast.

The MFAH got its start in 1900, when a group of Houston civic leaders founded the Houston Public School Art League, an organization for “the encouragement of art and culture in the public school system.”  The first MFAH building opened its doors in 1924, making it the first art institution in Texas and the third in the South.

Seventy-five years later, the MFAH is a massive fine art complex that hosts 300,000 square feet of space for displaying fine art and welcomes more than 2.5 million patrons each year.  The museum’s collection is one of the most extensive and diverse in the nation, featuring more than 60,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present and representing civilizations of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, while specializing in Italian renaissance paintings, French Impressionist works and American art.  The museum also boasts two art schools and has extensive community outreach programs, upholding the founders’ mission of bringing art to public institutions.

Aside from being a historically important fine art museum, the MFAH is known today for its outstanding film programming.  The Brown Auditorium at MFAH is Houston’s oldest repertory cinema, having sponsored film exhibitions since 1939.  Today, the theater showcases a wide range of vintage and contemporary films, and frequently schedules appearances by prominent figures in the art world.

So let oblivious Angelenos and New Yorkers laugh — Texas will never be a “fly-over” state to art lovers, thanks to the MFAH.