Horace Kelley

Kelley's interest in art originated from his wife's passion for art. He made his first trip to Europe in 1868 for health reasons, where he was first exposed to art museums. He made four more trips to Europe and collected artwork that would later become part of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Eight days before his death, Kelley signed a will that would leave a majority of his estate for an art gallery. Through his will, an excess of half a million dollars was bequeathed to acquire land for a fire proof art gallery and an art school, part of which would help to establish the Cleveland Museum of Art. He viewed the art gallery as a place that would attract gifts of artwork and sums of money, suggesting to name the gallery the "National Gallery of Fine Arts". He conditioned that "no work of art unless of acknowledged merit" be admitted into the gallery. He named three trustees to his estate: his cousin Alfred S. Kelley, judge James M. Jones, and Henry C. Ranney, a lawyer and trustee of the estates of Cleveland Museum of Art founders Hinman Hurlbut and John Huntington. These two businessmen and Kelley made their separate bequests to the museum without telling each other.

After Kelley's death, these trustees helped to establish a nonprofit corporation that incorporated the funds of his estate and was named the Cleveland Museum of Art, in 1899. The corporation was formed for the purpose of "promoting the fine arts" and establishing and maintaining an art museum. The corporation faced legal difficulties due to the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust, another corporation formed through the will of John Huntington, which had also independently provided funds for the purpose of establishing an art museum. In 1913, the two corporations finally reached an agreement to establish a single art museum in cooperation. Under the agreement, the name of the Kelley corporation was changed to the Horace Kelley Art Foundation, while a separate corporation responsible for the establishing the museum was formed and named the Cleveland Museum of Art. This new corporation, under the combined resources of the Kelley and Huntington estates, commenced the construction of the museum in May 1913, and formally opened it to the public on June 6, 1916.

Kelley is considered one of the founders of the Cleveland Museum of Art, along with John Huntington, Hinman Hurlbut, and Jeptha Wade II.