Layton Art Gallery

The Layton Art Gallery is a defunct art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Built at the initiative of British-American businessman Frederick Layton, the gallery was inaugurated in 1888 as the first public art institution in the city. Its one-story building, designed in the Greek Revival style by Scottish architect George Ashdown Audsley, stood at the corner of Mason and Jefferson streets, in downtown Milwaukee. The bulk of the gallery's works consisted of Layton's personal collection of European and American paintings and sculpture, assembled during the five years preceding the institution's opening, as well as subsequent purchases through an endowment.

Following Layton's death, art educator Charlotte Partridge opened the Layton School of Art in the basement of the gallery, a decision originally met with opposition from part of the public. Nevertheless, the school operated on site until 1951, when it relocated to a new building in the East Side district of Milwaukee. In 1957, the Layton Art Gallery merged with another institution, the Milwaukee Art Institute, to form the future Milwaukee Art Museum, housed in the County War Memorial designed by architect Eero Saarinen. The vacant Audsley building was razed in fall of that year. The original Layton Art Collection was entrusted to the new museum yet has remained under the purview of a distinct board of trustees since then.