The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is a public art museum in Columbus, Ohio. It was the first art museum in Ohio to register its charter, founded in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978). The museum collects and exhibits modern and contemporary art from the United States and Europe, as well as folk art, glass art, and photography. Nannette Maciejunes has been the museum’s executive director since 2003.
History
The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts was established in 1878 as the Columbus Museum of Art. It was housed in the Francis C. Sessions House, a founder of Columbus Art School (later known as Columbus College of Art and Design), beginning in 1919. (CCAD). Sessions bequeathed the mansion and property to the art museum, which remained in operation until 1923. The house was demolished, and the current museum was built on its site. Beaton Hall at CCAD incorporates elements from the Sessions House’s entranceway. Bed Bug Exterminator Columbus
The current structure was constructed on the same site from 1929 to 1931 and opened on January 22, 1931. A visually unobtrusive structure was added to the back of the building in 1974, and a visually unobtrusive structure was added to the building’s rear. On March 19, 1992, the museum building was listed under its original name on the National Register of Historic Places.
Architecture
The 1931 museum structure, now known as the Elizabeth M. Richards, McCarty, and Bulford, Columbus, OH architects, designed the Richard M. Ross Building in the Second Renaissance Revival style. It has a concrete foundation, limestone and concrete walls, and a copper-hipped roof. The structure is two stories high, horizontal, and has a central design advanced several feet in front of its two wings. The wings are adorned with large limestone friezes known collectively as The Frederick W. Schumacher Frieze or Masters of Art. Robert Ingersoll Aitken depicts 68 artists from 490 B.C. to 1925 A.D.
Three arched portals to the interior comprise the original main entryway. Decorative moldings, keystones, bulls-eye medallions, and stone quoins adorn the facade. A “Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts” frieze hung above the arches, and sixteen limestone steps led to the sidewalk, flanked by two Italian-style lamp posts.
Collections
Outstanding late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American and European modern works are included in the permanent collection. The Ferdinand Howald Collection of early Modernist paintings, the Sirak Collection of Impressionist and Expressionist works, the Photo League Collection, and the Philip and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art are among the significant collections. Furthermore, the Museum has one of the most extensive collections of works by Columbus, OH-born artists Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Elijah Pierce, and George Bellows.
Highlights include works by François Boucher, Paul Cézanne, Mary Cassatt, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Edward Hopper, and Norman Rockwell, as well as installations by Mel Chin, Josiah McElheny, Susan Philipsz, and Allan Sekula.
Address: 480 E Broad St, Columbus, OH
Check out other attractions like Columbus Park of Roses