{"id":421917,"date":"2026-05-11T07:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421917\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T07:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:37:18","slug":"austins-elisabet-ney-museum-in-hyde-park-to-reopen-in-spring-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421917\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin’s Elisabet Ney Museum in Hyde Park to reopen in spring 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Elisabet Ney Museum<\/a> is slated to reopen in spring 2027 after a thorough renovation, already well underway, and a virtual revolution in its public role as part of Austin\u2019s larger culture.<\/p>\n

The pioneering German\u00a0American sculptor\u2019s 1892 limestone studio, which she called Formosa, has always been a jewel.<\/p>\n

Yet under director and curator Jade Walker<\/a>, the little castle in\u00a0Hyde Park<\/a>, as well as its restored meadow gardens above Waller Creek, will become a beehive of activities that combine art, history, education and a sense of place in fresh ways.<\/p>\n

After guiding this reporter around the site last month, Walker and some museum advocates chatted with me about Ney, the woman, who can be credited with helping found the city\u2019s arts scene during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n

Beyond her artistic triumphs, Ney\u2019s personal story \u2014 her outsider status, eccentricities and progressive ambitions \u2014 makes this history even more compelling. Spend any time exploring Austin\u2019s past and you\u2019ll run into anecdotes about Ney\u2019s unusual presence on the social scene, distinctive manner of dress, vegetarian diet, status as an unmarried woman living with a male partner, and other then-peculiar habits, sometimes recounted humorously.<\/p>\n

To fall back on a clich\u00e9, Ney made Austin weird. Or at least weirder.<\/p>\n

Since the tour, we have embarked on a conversation about Ney\u2019s strengths, foibles, quirks and idiosyncrasies. Walker\u00a0supplied a version of the following list. I\u2019ll follow in a future column with excerpts from the American-Statesman archives. You can add your curious Ney stories, too. Please send to mbarnes@statesman.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Elisabet Ney Museum is slated to reopen in spring 2027 after a thorough renovation, already well underway, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-421917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}