Established in 1961, the Washington Gallery of Modern Art (WGMA) was the first museum in Washington, DC, dedicated to contemporary art. In 1968, due to financial difficulties, the Washington Gallery of Modern Art merged with the Corcoran Gallery of Art. As the Corcoran was interested only in acquiring a few works from the WGMA Collection, the WGMA’s board decided to sell the entire collection to another institution to keep it intact. In October of that year, the Oklahoma Art Center—a predecessor of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art—purchased the entire WGMA Collection.

With the purchase of this 154-work collection, OKCMOA joined the ranks of prominent American art museums collecting contemporary art. This major acquisition was an important milestone in our city and region’s cultural history, and it has since become the cornerstone of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s rich and dynamic collection of modern and contemporary art.

A number of these works can be found in Postwar Abstractions on the third floor.