
	Founded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art is the largest municipal museum in the Southeast and one of the finest regional museums in the United States. It houses a nationally recognized collection of over 22,000 works of art dating from ancient to modern times and features paintings, drawings, textiles, and decorative arts from many diverse cultures including European, American, Asian, African, Pre-Columbian, and Native American art. Noted artists featured in the BMA permanent collection include Old Masters such as Canaletto and Gainsborough; Impressionists Monet, Degas, Pissarro, and Cassatt; as well as contemporary art icons such as Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, and Frank Stella. The Charles W. Ireland Sculpture Garden is considered a work of art in itself. The Museum&#39;s Asian Art collection is the finest, largest and most comprehensive collection of Asian art in the Southeast, comprising over 5,000 objects from China, Japan, Korea, India, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. The collection ranks in the top 12 nationwide and contains outstanding examples of Buddhist and Hindu art, lacquer ware, ceramics, paintings, prints, sculpture, and decorative arts. The Coleman Cooper Rug Collection at the BMA contains over one hundred rugs representing a studious cross section of carpets woven in traditional patterns from the major carpet producing regions of Asia, Central Asia, and the Near East.
