Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art
Cheekwood's art collection was founded in 1959 upon the holdings of the former Nashville Museum of Art and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The core holdings include broad collections of American art; American and British decorative arts; contemporary art, especially outdoor sculpture acquired for the Woodland Sculpture Trail.
Cheekwood's American art collection includes 600 paintings and 5,000 prints, drawings and photographs. The collection, assembled in the 1980s and early 1990s through a multimillion-dollar bequest, spans the history of American art. Its strength centers on The Eight. Other strengths include the world's largest collection of sculptures of William Edmondson, photographs by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and a vast variety of post-Second World War prints. Recently, the Museum has pursued a consciously focused acquisition process, having added paintings by James Hamilton, William Bradford, and new contemporary sculpture for the Trail.
The core holdings of the decorative arts collection include the third-largest Worcester porcelain in the United States, and a 650-piece silver collection, spanning the 18th-20th centuries.