Oakland Museum of California
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| Established | 1969 |
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| Location | 1000 Oak St, Oakland, CA 94607 |
| Coordinates | 37°47′55″N 122°15′49″W / 37.7986°N 122.2636°W |
| Type | Art, History, Natural Science |
| Director | Lori Fogarty |
| Public transit access | BART (one block from Lake Merritt station) |
| Website | museumca.org |
The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located in Oakland, California. The museum contains more than 1.8 million objects dedicated to "telling the extraordinary story of California." It was created in the mid-1960s out of the merger of three separate museums dating from the early 20th century, and was opened in 1969.
The museum building, designed by architect Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC (Roche-Dinkeloo), with landscape design by Dan Kiley and gardens by Geraldine Knight Scott, is an important example of mid-century modernism and the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces. The concrete building includes three tiers, one each focusing on the art, history, and natural science collections, along with temporary exhibition galleries, an auditorium, a restaurant, and other ancillary spaces. Outdoor architectural features are terraced roof gardens, patios, outdoor sculpture, a large lawn area, and a koi pond.
Between 2009 and 2013, the museum underwent a major renovation and expansion designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates. The art and history galleries were closed from August 2009 to May 2010, followed by closure of the natural science gallery and education facilities (reopened in May 2013). Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the environmental graphics program for the renovation and re-branding of the museum. Core support for the capital improvements came from Measure G, a $23.6 million bond initiative passed by Oakland voters in 2002.
The museum owns more than 70,000 examples of California art and design, created from the mid-1800s to the present. Painters represented in the art collection include Addie L. Ballou, Albert Bierstadt, George Henry Burgess, Richard Diebenkorn, Maynard Dixon, Childe Hassam, Thomas Hill, Amédée Joullin, William Keith, David Park, Mel Ramos, Granville Redmond, Jules Tavernier, Wayne Thiebaud, and the "Society of Six" (William H. Clapp, Selden Connor Gile, August Gay, Bernard Von Eichman, Maurice Logan, and Louis Siegriest). The museum holds the personal archives of Dorothea Lange and images by many other noted photographers.
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