Indianapolis
Museum of Art
This museum is one of the ten biggest and oldest
general art museums in the country, founded in 1883, when 18
local residents signed articles of incorporation to begin the
Art Association of Indianapolis, that included May Wright Sewall
who had worked in the women's suffrage movement and was one of
the founders of the International Council of Women. Their first
exhibition would be that year, and included paintings by
American artists Alfred Thompson Bricher and William Merritt
Chase and their first permanent museum and art school was called
the John Herron Art Institute and Herron School of Art, opening
in 1906. By 1969, the name had been changed to the current one,
and in 1970, it moved into a new and bigger structure, a few
miles from downtown. Since that time, there have been four new
pavilions added and a recent expansion that added 171,800 square
feet of space. Some of the early supporters would help the
museum acquire works by such greats as Paul Cezanne, Pablo
Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat and others. The
main floor contains mostly pre-20th century European and
American artworks, while the second houses non-western artworks
and the third floor modern and contemporary art by such greats
as Vito Acconci and James Turrell. The Sutphin Fountain is a
huge geometric limestone and concrete fountain that is found at
the museum grounds and designed by Stu Dawson, sitting on the 26
acres main campus, and dedicated in 1972. Their permanent
collection contains over 50,000 works of art that span the range
and scope of history, along with being a showcase for national
and international exhibitions and some of the more important
include; Neo-impressionism, Eli Lilly Collection of Chinese Art,
Caroline Marmon Fesler Painting collection, Chinese Painting of
the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Clowes collection, R. Norris
Shreve collection of Chinese jade, Eiteljorg collection of
African Art, Asian Textiles, the Josefowitz collection of
Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven, Marilyn and Eugene Glick
collection of Studio Glass, American impressionism, English and
European porcelain of the 18th and 19th centuries, Pantzer
collection of works by J. M. W. Turner, Gifts of the Gamboliers,
contemporary art, Indiana paintings, fashion arts, African
textiles and Fashion arts.
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