By The Shout

The following announcement is based on a press release from the Gilcrease Museum.

TULSA, Oklahoma — After more than five years of anticipation, the Gilcrease Museum has announced it will reopen to the public in March 2027, welcoming visitors into a reimagined museum experience.

Closed since July 4, 2021, for the demolition of its original facility and construction of a new museum, Gilcrease is undergoing a $140.9 million transformation that represents a new chapter for a major Oklahoma cultural institutions.

More than 75 years after Thomas Gilcrease, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, established a museum in Tulsa to tell the stories of the Americas, the reopening further integrates the museum, the Helmerich Center for American Research, the historic Thomas Gilcrease House, and its surrounding natural landscape as a single destination for research, learning and public engagement.

The new Gilcrease will invite visitors to discover one of the nation’s most interdisciplinary collections, with more than 300,000 items spanning 12,000 years of history across the Western Hemisphere. The Gilcrease collection encompasses Anglo-American art and history, including colonial portraiture and art of the American West; Indigenous art and history, from ancestral cultural materials to contemporary Native art; and colonial Latin American materials, represented across paintings and sculptures, prints and drawings, photographs, manuscripts and archives, rare books and material culture.

“Gilcrease has long been a place where art, history and people come together to tell the many interconnected stories of the Americas," said Brian Lee Whisenhunt, executive director and CEO of Gilcrease. "The reopening of Gilcrease marks an extraordinary moment not only for Tulsa, but for the entire nation. It is a celebration of the rich, diverse and complex stories of the Americas and an invitation for people from across the country to experience, explore and connect with the history that has shaped us all."

Nestled within Tulsa’s scenic Osage Hills, the museum features 14 permanent collection galleries designed for self-guided exploration, presenting interconnected stories through multiple cultural lenses, including Indigenous nations, the American West, and Latin America. Beyond the galleries, visitors can explore 460 acres of natural landscape connected by 14 miles of trails for hiking and biking.

“The opening of Gilcrease will soon be a reality because Tulsans believed in the future of this incredible asset and worked to make this transformation possible," said Monroe Nichols, the mayor of Tulsa. "The new Gilcrease will be a place where people from Tulsa, Oklahoma and around the world can come together to better understand our history and honor the sovereign land we stand on today."

For nearly two decades, The University of Tulsa has stewarded Gilcrease. As a research university, faculty have made discoveries from within the archives and have partnered with scholars from around the globe by facilitating access to one-of-a-kind documents, objects, works of art and other items.

Additional details about opening weekend festivities, exhibitions and visitor experiences will be announced in the coming months. For more information, to purchase a membership or to receive reopening updates, visit gilcrease.org.

Announcements are submissions from arts and cultural organizations and community members. They are published at the discretion of SHOUT editors and may be lightly edited. Send press releases and other announcements to emily@shoutwichita.com.

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