page_title: Philbrook Museum of Art
section_title: Villa Philbrook
hierarchical_section_title: Philbrook Museum of Art / Building / Villa Philbrook
caption_attribution_description: English: The Philbrook Museum of Art. Renaissance style gardens Deutsch: The Philbrook Museum of Art. Garten im Renaissancestil
context_page_description: Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve. Showcasing nine collections of art from all over the world, and spanning various artistic media and styles, the cornerstone collection focuses on Native American art featuring basketry, pottery, paintings and jewelry.
context_section_description: The original structure of the museum is an Italian Renaissance villa that was the former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve. Phillips commissioned prominent Kansas City architect Edward Buehler Delk to design the mansion in 1926; construction began the same year by the John Long Company of Kansas City and was completed the following year. Named "Villa Philbrook," the three-story mansion was constructed of steel and a reinforced concrete framework that resulted in minimal remodeling being required to transform the villa into an art museum. The exterior of the house is stucco that includes ground white marble in the mixture causing it to glitter. The corners are quoined with Kasota limestone, quarried in Minnesota, that resemble Italian travertine. This stonework also decorates the doors and windows. In the rear of the house, a loggia showcasing five arches with Corinthian columns, highlights a terrace overlooking the formal gardens. The roof features wide eaves and is covered with oversized Italianate tiles.
  The interior of the mansion featured 72 rooms decorated with travertine and marble fireplaces and fountains, floors of teak, walnut and oak and ornate ceilings reminiscent of Italian villas. The main rooms of the house were found on the ground floor. The mansion is centered by the entrance hall, framed by a double staircase, that flows directly into the receiving hall. The hall is separated by a slightly raised cross-corridor with a groin vaulted ceiling painted with Italian Renaissance designs, further defined by twisted Corinthian columns and ironwork. The main features of the receiving hall are the beams and pierced screenwork that appear to be wood, but are actually painted plaster. Also, a two-manual Aeolian pipe organ can be found behind a large tapestry. Flanking the entrance and receiving halls and accessed by the cross-corridor are the dining room and library to the left and the living and music rooms to the right. The dining and living rooms feature heavily carved coffered ceilings, and the wood paneled library is centered by a globe light fixture that reproduces a map from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. The airy music room is highlighted by a wall mural with bobbed-hair flappers in Grecian garb that illustrates four musical tempos: scherzo, andante, rondo and allegro. 
  
  In the wing to the right of the main block of the house was a sunroom and to the left was the service wing that included the kitchen and servants quarters. On the second floor was the Phillip's private quarters containing four family bedrooms, each with a bathroom, dressing room and sleeping porch, and two guest rooms. A staircase located between the receiving hall and dining room accessed the lower floor leading to the Southwestern rooms and to the porte-cochère. In 1938, the Phillips donated Villa Philbrook and its surrounding gardens to the city of Tulsa, in hopes that the estate would be used for art and cultural purposes. While the principal rooms on the first floor were left virtually untouched, the rest of the space has been remodeled for its use as a public institution.
caption: Formal gardens
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