The Elisabet Ney Museum is the historic home and studio of European-born 19th century portrait sculptor and women’s rights activist Elisabet Ney (1833-1907). Elisabet Ney was a wildly iconoclastic German sculptor who moved to Austin in 1882. An early leader of the Texas Women’s Movement and a vigorous Civil Rights, education and arts advocate, Miss Ney was one of a kind.
The museum features her own work — large scale classical-style portraits of 19th-century European intellectuals, statesmen and royalty as well as Texas heroes. This is the largest collection of this remarkable woman’s work, spanning the 1850s through her death at the site in 1907. Also, furnishings and ephemera.
The Museum also exhibits contemporary artists in the building as well as on the grounds, much of which features a Historic Prairie Landscape Restoration that mimics what Miss Ney found when she purchased the property in 1882. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is a contributing structure to the Hyde Park National Register Historic District. A portion of the 2.5 acre grounds features a historic prairie recreation, and historic Waller Creek runs through the site.
Admission is free.
Credit: Overview from museum website