The Snite Museum of Art is a fine art museum on the University of Notre Dame campus, near South Bend, Indiana. It owns over 23,000 works which represent many principal world cultures and periods, with a focus on Western art history. It is particularly known for its Italian Renaissance paintings and their Mesoamerican galleries. According to the website,..."the museum now exhibits the most important collection of Olmec art in any art museum in the United States. The Unruh purchase reinforces the Museum's position as one of the most important general pre-Columbian collections in this country."PredecessorsBefore the Snite opened in 1980, Notre Dame did not have an art museum, although various public spaces at the University offered galleries. As early as 1924, the Wightman Memorial Art Gallery at University Library was used for art exhibitions. In 1952, O'Shaughnessy Hall, home of the College of Arts and Letters, was equipped with galleries. During the 1950s, Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović was in residence at the University, working in the eponymous Meštrović Studio.In 1975, the Fred B. Snite family donated funds to construct the Snite Museum of Art. The museum opened in 1980, incorporating both Meštrović's sculpture studio (Snite is also home to the Ivan Meštrović papers) and the O'Shaughnessy art gallery, the latter used for the presentation of traveling and temporary exhibitions.Outreach programsThe Museum provides curriculum-related tours for 7,000 area-school children, after-school, and summer programs at the Robinson Community Learning Center, summer art camps for at-risk children, art instruction for ACE student teachers and teacher workshops for local K-12 instructors.