The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is to begin repairs more than two years after a torrential rainstorm flooded parts of the institution, causing significant water damage. Following the storm in August 2022, the museum shuttered its Wendy and Emery Reves Collection of French impressionists and its popular Center for Creative Connections, a child-friendly interactive learning environment and favourite of local families. The galleries are now expected to reopen early next year.
The delay in renovations has been a primarily bureaucratic issue. The Dallas City Council just approved $6m in funding from the 2022 Severe Weather and Flood Fund on 8 January, an initial step in addressing repairs to city-owned facilities. The museum will use the funds to contract a construction company to overhaul the Reves Collection and Center for Creative Connections galleries, including installing new floors, cabinetry, signage and walls. The DMA has been working closely with the city to iron out insurance paperwork and, according to the municipal facilities and real estate management department, construction should be completed by January 2026.
“This was as quickly as things could move since 2022,” Aschelle Morgan, a spokesperson for the museum, told KERANews. “So we have been anxiously awaiting construction to start and we’re excited that it will be kicking off very soon.”
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News in 2023, the DMA’s former director Augustin Arteaga said that insurance adjusters had characterised the storm that closed the museum as “not the flood of a century but rather the flood of 1,000 years”.
The renovation of the Reves Collection and Center for Creative Connections galleries comes as the DMA plans for a major expansion project helmed by the Spanish architecture firm Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. That $150m expansion will occur in parallel with additional maintenance to be executed with $20m allocated from the Dallas city bond package. The city’s insurance will reimburse the majority of flooding-related repair costs.
“This funding is a necessary step to address the immediate need for restoration and maintain the DMA as a cultural and educational cornerstone of the Arts District and our city,” Paul Ridley, a member of Dallas’s city council whose district includes the DMA, said in a statement. “This funding also exemplifies the council’s commitment to supporting the arts in Dallas.”
