The story
The Kimbell is as famous for its building as for anything hanging in it. Louis Kahn designed it as a run of parallel concrete vaults, each split down the crown by a narrow slit of skylight that a curved metal reflector spreads into a soft silver glow across the ceiling. It was his last completed work, finished in 1972, two years before he died, and architects still travel to Fort Worth to study how he made daylight behave.
The collection is small on purpose. Kay Kimbell, who built a fortune in grain milling and oil in Texas, left funds with instructions to buy few works and only of the first rank. So the rooms hold a handful of exceptional pictures, among them Caravaggio's early Cardsharps, a Rembrandt and a Velázquez.
One of the smallest panels draws the most talk: the Torment of Saint Anthony, a scene copied from an engraving and now credited to Michelangelo at about 12 or 13, believed to be the only painting by him in the Americas.
Collection
20 works
The CardsharpsCaravaggio, 1590
The Torment of Saint AnthonyMichelangelo, 1487
The Anger of AchillesJacques-Louis David, 1819
Portrait of Dr. Francisco de PisaEl Greco, 1612
Four Figures on a StepBartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1655
Portrait of Don Pedro de BarberanaDiego Velázquez, 1632
The Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph, Elizabeth, and John the BaptistAndrea Mantegna, 1485
Christ BlessingGiovanni Bellini, 1500
Madonna and ChildParmigianino, 1528
Portrait of Georges ClemenceauÉdouard Manet, 1879
The Rommelpot playerFrans Hals, 1618
Drying NetsAlfred Sisley, 1872
On the Pont de l’EuropeGustave Caillebotte, 1876
Pedro RomeroFrancisco Goya, 1795
L'AsieHenri Matisse, 1946
Glaucus and ScyllaJ. M. W. Turner, 1841
La Pointe de la Hève at Low TideClaude Monet, 1865
Near Sydenham HillCamille Pissarro, 1871
Portrait of Francisco de PisaEl Greco, 1610
Roe Deer at a StreamGustave Courbet, 1868