In this 1975 Chattanooga News-Free Press photo, the Hunter Museum of Art was set to re-open after a two-year renovation and addition project. The East Wing, shown here on the left, was the new structure and joined a 1905 mansion to form the museum. News-Free Press photo via ChattanoogaHistory.com.The year 1975 marked a turning point for the arts in Chattanooga.
In September 1975, a renovated and expanded Hunter Museum of Art was formally re-opened to the public after two years of work.
Now generally acknowledged as one of America's best mid-sized art museums, the modern Hunter Museum of American Art was expanded when a concrete structure, known as the East Wing, was unveiled to the public on the last day of summer 1975.
Built in a style known as brutalism, which was popular from the 1950s to the 1970s, the East Wing was designed by the Chattanooga architectural team of Derthick, Henley and Wilkerson. It added space to an existing 1905 neo-classical brick mansion that had served as the main building before the expansion.
As shown in this 1975 photo, the mid-1970s Hunter Museum of Art, perched on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River, featured contrasting architectural styles. The East Wing is on the left and the mansion is on the right in the photo, which was found in a box of slides recently discovered at the offices of the Chattanooga Times Free Press on East 11th Street.
Today, the Hunter is comprised of the 1905 Mansion, the 1975 East Wing and the 2005 West Wing, a 28,000-square-foot modern structure that was built as part of the sprawling 21st Century Waterfront development.
More Info
ChattanoogaHistory.comLaunched by history enthusiast Sam Hall in 2014, ChattanoogaHistory.com is maintained to present historical images in the highest resolution available.If you have photo negatives, glass plate negatives, or original non-digital prints taken in the Chattanooga area, contact Sam Hall for information on how they may qualify to be digitized and preserved at no charge.
In 1975, the grand opening of the museum's East Wing was a major cultural event in the city and was covered as a front-page story in the Chattanooga News-Free Press.
More than 1,000 people visited the museum on opening day, Sept. 21, 1975, to see the museum's permanent collection plus "over 100 works of major importance on loan from many Southern museums," the newspaper reported.
The chairman of the board of the museum, banker Scott L. Probasco Jr., called the Hunter event "the most exciting day in our beloved Chattanooga's cultural history."
Others at the ceremony included then-Chattanooga Mayor Pat Rose, then-Congresswoman Marilyn Lloyd and Ben Haden, pastor of First Presbyterian Church at the time.
More photos in the "Remember When, Chattanooga?" series can be viewed at ChattanoogaHistory.com a website featuring vintage photos of the city curated by history enthusiast Sam Hall. Follow the "Remember When, Chattanooga?" public group on Facebook.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.