Background
Marion was born in Ohio to Marion and Clara Koogler.
Marion was born in Ohio to Marion and Clara Koogler.
University of Kansas. School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
She later willed her fortune to be used to establish San Antonio"s first museum of modern art, which today bears her name. This land later proved to contain substantial oil reserves, and made the family wealthy. This allowed Marion to attend the University of Kansas and the Art Institute of Chicago. is one of the best qualified art teachers I have ever known.
She teaches art in a manner that arouses and develops the child’s observation and enlarges his aesthetic nature.
On his property, she began to construct a Spanish Mediterranean style mansion (she designed some of the tilework and ceiling stencils herself), which was completed in 1927. She also began to accumulate a significant collection of artwork.
The first oil painting she purchased was Diego Rivera’s Delfina Flores. She collected a large number of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art, early 20th-century modernists including Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall.
She also bought a number of Southwestern santos and retablos.
Marion was a significant patron of the arts among the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, where she made frequent trips. In 1943, Congress proposed a bill providing for the exploration of Pueblo lands with the ultimate goal of building a dam on the Rio Grande. Marion, in conjunction with other conservationists, was instrumental in defeating this proposal.
Upon Marion"s death, caused by pneumonia in 1950, she willed her fortune, her art collection, and her home to a trust to convert her home into a modern art museum.
This was the first museum of its kind in San Antonio and the Southwest region of the United States. The museum was named after her, and has been expanded to include galleries of medieval and Renaissance artwork and a larger collection of 20th-century European and American modernist work.
A large theatre arts library and gallery were also added, as well as an art reference library and an auditorium. More recently, the McNay Art Museum recently added the Stieren Center, built by internationally renowned architect Jean-Paul Viguier, to display their Modern collection.