h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would add to your post - There are 2 fantastic museums in Tulsa that have been overlooked.

Gilcrease Museum
Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum is one of the country's best facilities for the preservation and study of American art and history. The museum's charm, beauty and art collections draw thousands of visitors from around the world to the hills just northwest of downtown Tulsa for a glimpse into the past. Gilcrease Museum houses the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art and artifacts of the American West. The Museum also offers an unparalleled collection of Native American art and artifacts, as well as historical manuscripts, documents and maps.

William Thomas Gilcrease (1890–1962) was an American oilman, art collector and philanthropist. During his lifetime, Gilcrease collected more than 10,000 artworks, 250,000 Native American artifacts and 100,000 rare books and documents, including the only surviving certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. He was the founder of Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Gilcrease began to collect oil paintings and other artifacts of the American West in 1922. At a time when few were interested in Native American art or artifacts of the American West, Gilcrease supported a number of Oklahoma Indian artists, including Woody Crumbo, Acee Blue Eagle, and Willard Stone, each of whom created works held in the collection.
In 1947, he purchased the entire collection of the late Phillip Gillette Cole, an avid New York collector. The collection contained twenty-seven bronzes and forty-six paintings by Charles Russell, seventeen bronzes and twelve paintings by Frederic Remington, photographs by Edward Curtis, and documents and correspondence of well known figures in the American West.

Beyond the extensive Gilcrease collections and exhibits are its beautiful facilities and gardens. Themed gardens have been developed on 23 of the museum's 460 acres.




Philbrook Museum of Art
The Philbrook Museum houses exhibitions from around the world, including one of the finest permanent collections of Renaissance and Baroque art and sculpture in the United States. It features work from such masters as Piero di Cosimo, Gentile da Fabriano, Biagio d'Antonio da Firenze, Tanzio da Varallo, and Bernardo Strozzi. The Philbrook also features 19th century European artists, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, American artists Thomas Moran, William Merritt Chase, and Levi Wells Prentice.

The museum is widely recognized for its outstanding Native American and African art collection, which includes a collection of works by Jerome Tiger.

The American and European collection received a boost from Laura A. Club who donated paintings in 1947 and from Italian Renaissance paintings and sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1961. The museum shares a new Adkins Collection of Native American painting, pottery and jewelry with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.

An Italian Renaissance villa, the Philbrook was designed in 1926 by Kansas City architect Edward Buehler Delk. Construction on the mansion was begun the same year by the John Long Company of Kansas City and completed in 1927. Originally called Villa Philbrook, the home featured 72 rooms on 23 acres (93,000 m²) of grounds. The expansive grounds contain elaborate gardens inspired by Villa Lante, an Italian country estate north of Rome designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in 1566. In 1938, Waite Phillips donated the Villa Philbrook and surrounding gardens to the city of Tulsa, in hopes that the estate would be used for art and cultural purposes. The immense house, with its spacious rooms, wide corridors and great halls, was a natural home for a museum and, due to its steel and concrete framework, minimal remodeling was required to transform the Villa into an art museum.

In 2009, after a rigorous two-year process, Philbrook achieved reaccreditation from the American Association of Museums (AAM). Of the nation's estimated 17,500 museums, 775 are currently accredited and less than one half (286) are art museums. Philbrook has maintained this national recognition since 1987, demonstrating adherence to the highest professional standards in preservation, exhibitions, education, and community programs.