Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The Smith Institute first opened to the public on 11 August 1874. It was an occasion for great celebration in Stirling, and the shops in the town closed at 12 noon to allow people to attend the opening. Nevertheless, there were some mixed feelings, for Thomas Stuart Smith, had died in 1869 and the location of the building was felt by many people to be too far away from the old town.
Philbrook Museum of Art
The Philbrook Art Museum, under the guidance of its first director, Eugene Kingman, opened its doors to the public on October 25, 1939 with a permanent art collection made up of works from the Tulsa Art Association and Villa Philbrook. In 1940, studio art classes were initiated and a touring program for school children the following year that resulted in the addition of a Children's Museum in 1949. A new museum wing was built in 1969 in response to an increased demand for studio art classes, but the use of this space has since changed. The art museum underwent difficult financial times in the 1980s and a renaissance in the 1990s. The name changed from the Philbrook Art Center to The Philbrook Museum of Art in 1987 when it was first accredited. In 2009, after a two-year process, Philbrook was reaccredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), one of 286 art museums and 775 museums overall out of the estimated 17,500 museums in the United States.