San Antonio Museum of Art

The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is an art museum in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. In the early 1970s, plans were initiated to purchase the historic Lone Star Brewery complex for conversion into the San Antonio Museum of Art and following a $7.2 million renovation, the San Antonio Museum of Art opened to the public in March 1981. The museum was funded through grants from the Economic Development Administration of San Antonio, and numerous businessmen and foundations. The museum is situated on the northern section of the San Antonio Riverwalk. Café des Artistes is SAMA's restaurant which overlooks the river.

When the museum opened it specialized in art of the Americas including pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial and Latin American folk art. It also included eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century American and European paintings, photography, sculpture and decorative arts. In 1985, the Museum received collections of Latin American Folk Art formed from former Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert K. Winn.

In the 1990s the museum expanded considerably with donations from Gilbert M. Denman, Jr., the addition of the Stark-Willson Collection which established a comprehensive collection of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art and a collection of Chinese ceramics from trustees Walter F. and Lenora Brown. The Chinese collection which also included other Asian objects resulted in a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) wing named after them, The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing which opened in 2005 is now the largest museum for Asian art in the southern United States.

In 1991, the 7,000-square-foot (650 m2) Cowden Gallery was opened for changing exhibitions and, in 1994, the 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) Beretta Hops House was renovated to provide a new area for schooling with three main classrooms. In 1998, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art, a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) wing, opened to display Latin American art.