The story
Birmingham, Alabama built its art museum in 1951, and it grew into one of the largest in the American South, free to enter and encyclopedic, with more than 25,000 objects.
Its most surprising strength sits far from Alabama. Thanks to a 1976 gift from a local couple, Dwight and Lucille Beeson, the museum holds the largest collection of Wedgwood ceramics outside England, the blue-and-white jasperware that Josiah Wedgwood perfected in the 18th century, traced here from the factory's earliest pieces onward.
Elsewhere the collection ranges wide, a group of Renaissance and Baroque paintings from the Kress foundation, a deep Asian holding, and a growing collection of art by African American artists. An outdoor sculpture garden by the designer Elyn Zimmerman wraps the building with water and stone.
