In 1943, Jerry Bywaters, artist and Professor at Southern Methodist University, became the director of the museum, a position he held for the next twenty-one years.[8] Bywaters gave a sense of identity and community to the museum,[9] acquired impressionist, abstract, and contemporary masterpieces were acquired, emphasized the Texas identity of the museum was emphasized. This identity is today represented by works by Alexandre Hogue, Olin Herman Travis, Bywaters himself, and others.