Posted: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:57 PM - 10,062 Readers

By: News 8 Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum, in Hyde Park, will soon be undergoing a major restoration project.



The Museum is a former studio and portrait collection created by nineteenth-century sculptor Elisabet Ney.

Part of the restoration includes recreating the 1907 native Texas landscape which included prairie grass, wildflowers, and a vegetable garden.

The city also plans to make some drainage improvements to the building, and build a new disability ramp in front of the building.

Following Ney's death in 1907, her friends preserved her studio and its contents as the Elisabet Ney Museum, and dedicated it to honoring the memory of Elisabet Ney while promoting her ideals.

"We are most interested in having the building and the grounds to be true to Elisabet Ney and to be accurate, particularly for all the school children that come to see the museum. School children study Elisabet Ney in Fourth grade social studies and we have about 2,000 who come out every year," Museum curator,
Mary Collins-Blackmon said.

The project was funded through a grant from the Save America's Treasures project and a 2006 voter-approved bond.

The city's Public Works Department and project consultants will hold a meeting Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the LCRA Red Bud Center, 3601 Lake Austin Blvd., to unveil the plans for the four acre site.