[1] Thanks to a bequest from Susan Tolman Mills in 1912, as well as additional gifts, the current museum building was constructed in 1925.
Albert M. Bender, the Mills College Trustee chiefly responsible for the museum's completion, made a gift of 40 paintings and 75 prints by contemporary San Francisco Bay Area artists.
Bender's gift became the first public collection of modern art in Northern California.
Bender later became a principal founder of what is now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The current Mills College Art Museum building was designed by California architect Walter Ratcliff Jr. Ratcliff served as campus architect from 1923 to 1947 and designed several additional structures at Mills College.