Preservation Austin Talks: Elisabet Ney Museum Reimagined

Preservation Austin is hosting a talk on the Elisabet Ney Museum on Tuesday, September 22, at the McFarland-McBee House, 3805 Red River Street. The museum has been an Austin landmark for over a century, starting as the home and studio of the German sculptor Elisabet Ney and now as the museum that bears her name, which honors her influence on women's rights and the natural world. It's currently at the center of a few interconnected efforts to reimagine it for a new generation: a Capital Improvement Project, a landscape rehabilitation plan, and new public engagement and interpretive plans, all leading up to the museum's reopening in early 2027.

The talk brings together the partners involved in that work for a behind-the-scenes look at how they're collaborating. The panel includes Jade Walker from the Elisabet Ney Museum, Lindsey Derrington from Preservation Austin, Ellen Colfax from Austin Parks and Recreation, Miriam Conner from Creative Policy, Erin McClelland from MuseWork, and Jordan Nelsen from Friends of Ney. It's a good chance to hear from the people actually doing the work rather than just reading a press release about it.

There's plenty to keep an eye on at the museum while the larger project moves forward. The current exhibition, Breaking the Mold, reads Ney's iconoclastic life and art through the work of three contemporary Austin artists—Beili Liu, Virginia L. Montgomery, and Tammie Rubin. That show has already spun off into Breaking the Mold: Mobile Hands-On Art Crates, portable classroom kits that go into Austin elementary schools. The museum also runs Naturalists at the Ney, a series of nature and art programs on its historic grounds.

The talk runs from 7 PM to 8:30 PM on Tuesday, September 22, at the McFarland-McBee House. If the weather turns, it'll be rescheduled for September 29.