The story
Founded by May Wright Sewall and Theodore Lovett Sewall in 1883.1
Early days (1883–1969)
The Indianapolis Museum of Art was founded as the Art Association of Indianapolis, an open-membership group led by suffragist May Wright Sewall. Formed in 1883, the organization aimed to inform the public about visual art and provide art education. The Art Association's first exhibition, which opened November 7, 1883, contained 453 artworks from 137 artists. The death of wealthy Indianapolis resident John Herron in 1895 left a substantial bequest with the stipulation that the money be used for a gallery and a school with his name. The John Herron Art Institute opened in 1902 at the corner of 16th and Pennsylvania street, with the Herron Art School and the Herron Museum of Art opening in 1906. Emphasis on the Arts and Crafts movement grew throughout the early years of the school, with a focus on applied art. William Henry Fox was hired in 1905 as the Herron Museum of Art's first director. From 1905 to 1910, Fox managed both the museum and the school while constructing two new buildings on the 16th Street site.
From the 1930s until the 1950s, the John Herron Art Institute placed an emphasis on professionalism and growth in collections. Wilbur Peat, director of the museum from 1929 until 1965, acquired significant portions of the collection. Peat also made connections with benefactors such as George H. A. Clowes, Booth Tarkington, and Eli Lilly. Caroline Marmon Fesler, president of the Art Association of Indianapolis, gave a number of artworks in the 1940s, including 20th-century modern artworks and Post-Impressionist works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Seurat. After years of debate surrounding expansion and relocation of the museum and school, the great-grandchildren of Eli Lilly, J.K. Lilly III and Ruth Lilly, donated the family estate, Oldfields, to the Art Association of Indianapolis in 1966. One year later the Art Association decided that the Herron Art School would be ceded to Indiana University's Indianapolis campus in an effort to assist with accreditation. That same year the Association confirmed that the museum would relocate to Oldfields, with the new Krannert Pavilion opening to the public in October 1970. In 1969, prior to moving to the new site, the Art Association of Indianapolis officially changed its name to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Move to current location (1970–2011)
In 1960, Art Association of Indianapolis board members began discussing the idea of placing the museum at the center of a new cultural campus. Inspired by University Circle in Cleveland, Ohio, board chairman Herman Krannert proposed building an "Acropolitan Area" that would combine a number of cultural institutions in a natural setting. The museum's location on the grounds of Oldfields allowed architect Ambrose Madison Richardson to build on the idea of an acropolis while also utilizing the natural features of the site. Krannert Pavilion opened in 1970 as the first of four buildings located on the museum's grounds. Following the opening of Krannert, the expansion continued with the Clowes Pavilion in 1972, which housed the Clowes' collection of Old Masters. Construction on the Showalter Pavilion and Sutphin Fountain was completed in 1973. In 1986, the IMA's board members chose Edward Larrabee Barnes to design the Hulman Pavilion, a new wing of the museum which housed the Eiteljorg collection of African and South Pacific art. The pavilion opened in 1990 and increased the exhibition space to more than 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2). The expansion aimed to provide clearer chronological continuity and a more coherent flow as visitors moved from one gallery to the next.
Bret Waller became the director of the IMA in 1990, and was succeeded by Anthony Hirschel in 2001. From the mid-1990s until 2005 the IMA focused on the next phase of development, the "New Vision", or what became known as the "New IMA". After four years of restoration, the Oldfields mansion reopened to the public in June 2002 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003.
Lawrence A. O'Connor Jr., a former CEO of Bank One Indiana, was named the interim director of the IMA in November 2004 when the previous director Hirschel unexpectedly resigned. In 2005 the museum completed a three-year, $74 million renovation and expansion project that added three new wings and 50 percent more gallery space to the building. In all, the construction added 164,000 square feet (15,200 m2) to the museum, in addition to the renovation of 90,000 square feet (8,400 m2) of existing space. Renovations included the Hulman and Clowes Pavilions, which house the museum's European collection, as well as the addition of the Allen Whitehill Clowes Gallery. The expansion aimed to unify the building and campus while creating a more welcoming atmosphere for visitors. As one of three new wings and as a new entry to the building, the Efroymson Pavilion helped to transition visitors between the museum and the surrounding grounds. The Wood Gallery Pavilion added three levels of gallery space as well as a dining area and education suite, while the Deer Special Events Pavilion added additional space for private and public events. The architectural focus on welcoming visitors coincided with a new advertising campaign that reached out to a broader, more diverse audience.
Maxwell L. Anderson was hired as the permanent director and CEO of the IMA in 2006. While director, Anderson oversaw the opening of the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres and a conservation science-focused laboratory, as well as the acquisition of the mid-century modern Miller House and Garden estate. In 2008, the museum changed its main entrance and address from 1200 West 38th Street to 4000 North Michigan Road. Anderson left the museum in 2011.
Time under Charles L. Venable (2012–2021)
Charles L. Venable was hired as the director and CEO of the IMA in October 2012. The Indianapolis Star stated that while the previous six years under Anderson had seen impressive and well-received art world achievements, such as the acquisition of the Miller House and securing the bid for the Venice Biennale, liberal spending had led to a decrease in the endowment and the alienation of some big donors. The IMA was struggling with finances at the time, at least in part due to the Great Recession, as well as the departure of two fundraising chiefs from the museum and a top donor from the board of governors. A few months before Venable's arrival, the Moody's credit rating agency changed the IMA's rating from "stable" to "negative", due to the IMA's outstanding debt and reliance on investment income. From the beginning, Venable's financial conservatism and increase in paid events characterized as populist were a major part of his directorship, a direction that was alternately praised and lambasted by art critics, the local art community, and the media. In February 2013, art journalist Tyler Green criticized the approach, stating, "a mission-driven art museum is not a theme park [and] mere attendance is not a meaningful end." However, Venable defended the approach as pragmatic, stating, "Arts audiences over the last 50 years are getting smaller, so you've got to appeal to more people."
In March 2013, the IMA cut eleven percent of its staff in order to save $1.7 million annually. Following these layoffs, several high-profile staff members left, including curators of contemporary art Lisa Freiman and Sarah Urist Green. In April 2015, IMA leadership ended the organization's policy of free admission to all visitors, a move which was largely criticized by the media and patrons, but that the museum maintained was needed for financial stability. This change came with the addition of free parking. Subsequently, paid membership rose from about 5,000 when the museum was free, to more than 17,000 in October 2017.
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In mid-2016 and 2017, the IMA offered outdoor minigolf. The program was created by Scott Stulen, the curator of audience experiences at the time. The holes were designed by a variety of artists to have a Hoosier theme. The intent of the project was to use the museum's outdoor space to display interactive art that might attract those who might not usually feel comfortable in an art museum.
In October 2017, the museum continued this movement towards appealing to a wider audience with the announcement of a new branding initiative in which both the campus and the organization itself was renamed "Newfields". The initiative formally changed the names of the IMA, The Gardens, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, and Lilly House to include the phrase "at Newfields" appended to the end of each. The rebranding was preceded by the exodus of several curators, including the curator of contemporary art Tricia Paik and Scott Stulen. The effort included a number of new outdoor events including Winterlights, starting in 2017, and Harvest, starting in 2019.
In early 2018, the organization's new direction was heavily criticized by art critic Kriston Capps writing for CityLab, stating the changes were, "the greatest travesty in the art world in 2017" and that, "Venable [had] turned a grand encyclopedic museum into a cheap Midwestern boardwalk." The criticisms were widely discussed in the art community and Indianapolis media.
Around 2018, the museum spent $5.6 million per year to store and maintain the art, and with the museum's growing collection, its storage space needed to double at what would have been a cost of $12 million. However, in 2019, Venable sought to improve the quality of the IMA's art collection and reduce the amount of money the museum spent on art storage. A seven-year review of all 55,000 art objects in the collection began, asking curators to rank them in terms of quality from a high “A” to low “D”. This exercise allowed the institution to identify and promote its masterpieces, while slating lower quality pieces for deaccessioning in accordance with national museum standards. Venable's thoughts on the unsustainability of rapid collection growth and building expansions to accommodate more and more art brought him national attention, but proved controversial to some, including the IMA's staff.
The museum was temporarily closed from March 17, 2020, to June 23, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana. After reopening, only the outdoor areas were accessible until July 18, when the galleries and other indoor facilities reopened.
In 2021, the institution opened a remodeled fourth floor with 30,000 sq. ft. of digital art exhibitions called the Lume. The exhibit, considered a pet project of Venable, replaced the contemporary art exhibit at the museum, which provoked further controversy. The first exhibit was a Van Gogh immersive experience.
Job posting controversy and continued turmoil (2021-present)
In February 2021, the organization and Venable received national attention regarding a job posting for a new director. The Board of Trustees had elevated Venable to the new position of President of Newfields as part of a transition strategy that included Venable's planned retirement and the appointment of a new art museum director. In consultation with the San Francisco-based executive search firm m/Oppenheim Associates, a job description was created that stressed the desire for Newfields to diversify its audience over time without losing supporters who made up its current "core, white art audience".
The phrase attracted significant criticism from the press and art community, and sparked a larger discussion of what was described by some former employees as a "toxic" and "discriminatory" culture at Newfields. Ganggang, an Indianapolis-based cultural development firm, had been planning an exhibition with the museum featuring the 18 Black artists behind the city's Black Lives Matter street mural, known as The Eighteen Art Collective. The nonprofit announced they would not go forward with the exhibition. Open letters calling for Venable's removal were created by 85 Newfields employees and members of the board of governors, as well as another from more than 1,900 artists, local arts leaders and former employees of the museum. Venable resigned from his position as president of Newfields on February 17, 2021, and the company released a statement announcing chief financial officer Jerry Wise would serve as interim president and committing to a series of changes.
In November 2021, Newfields announced plans to revamp their galleries, with "global thematic displays" that reorganize works by theme, rather than time period or artistic movement.
In December 2021, Darrianne Christian was voted the first Black chairwoman on the museum's board. Colette Pierce Burnette was announced as the new president in May 2022, and she began leading the museum in August of that year. Burnette was previously the university president of the private historically Black Huston–Tillotson University and was the first Black woman to lead the museum.
In September 2022, a reworked version of The Eighteen Art Collective's art exhibition began, titled "We. The Culture". The works covered themes of hip-hop culture, queer identity and social justice.
In September 2023, after the position had remained empty since Venable's ascension to President of Newfields two-and-a-half years prior, Newfields announced the hiring of Belinda Tate as the new Director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, with Tate slated to start in November 2023.
In October 2023, the Indiana State Fair announced Newfields would be the presenting sponsor for the 2024 edition of the fair, with the selection of "the art and nature of fun" as the fair's theme.
The same month Tate began her role, the museum announced Burnette was leaving her role as President and CEO after only fifteen months on the job. Michael Kubacki, a former member of the board of trustees, was named as the interim head of the museum. No explanation was given for Burnette's departure. The Indiana Black Expo and Indianapolis Urban League paused their partnerships with Newfields and released a joint statement reading, "Due to the nature of the announcement and the negative perception it has created, the Newfields board leadership owes the community an explanation about the resignation of Dr. Colette Burnette." Additionally, three board members resigned leading up to and immediately following Burnette's departure. One of the members, Gary Hirschberg, stated his resignation was due to an "imposed direction", while another, chief human resources officer at IU Health Adrienne Sims, stated that, "Recent leadership decisions were not made in an inclusive and consultative manner". Several protestors picketed the first day of Newfields' annual Winterlights festival, as many Black community groups demanded an explanation for the departure. Kubacki served as interim president until October 2024, when Le Monte G. Booker took over. Booker previously served as chief financial officer at the Field Museum in Chicago.
From Wikipedia’s article on Indianapolis Museum of Art, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5