The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, located in the Wade Park District, in the

University Circle University Circle is a district in the neighborhood of University on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of America's densest concentrations of cultural attractions and performing arts venues, it includes such world-class institutions as the C ...

neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

and

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 61,000 works of art from around the world. The museum provides general admission free to the public. With a $755 million endowment, it is the fourth-wealthiest art museum in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. With about 770,000 visitors annually (2018), it is one of the most visited art museums in the world.

History

Beginnings

The Cleveland Museum of Art was founded as a trust in 1913 with an endowment from prominent Cleveland industrialists Hinman Hurlbut, John Huntington, and Horace Kelley. The neoclassical, white Georgian Marble, Beaux-Arts building was constructed on the southern edge of Wade Park, at the cost of $1.25 million. Wade Park and the museum were designed by the local architectural firm,

Hubbell & Benes Hubbell & Benes was a prominent Cleveland, Ohio architectural firm formed by Benjamin Hubbell (1857–1935) and W. Dominick Benes (1867–1953) in 1897Jeptha H. Wade, who donated part of his wooded estate to the city in 1881. The museum opened its doors to the public on June 6, 1916, with Wade's grandson, Jeptha H. Wade II, proclaiming it, "for the benefit of all people, forever". Wade, like his grandfather, had a great interest in art and served as the museum's first vice-president; in 1920 he became its president. Today, the park, with the museum still as its centerpiece, is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Mid to late 20th century expansion

In March 1958, the first addition to the building opened, doubling the museum's floorspace. This addition, which was on the north side of the original building, was designed by the Cleveland architectural firm of Hayes and Ruth. They designed new gallery space and a new art library. The museum again expanded in 1971 with the opening of the North Wing. With its stepped, two-toned granite facade, the addition designed by

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

architect

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most i ...

provided angular lines in distinct contrast with the flourishes of the 1916 building's neoclassical facade. The museum's main entrance was shifted to the North Wing. The auditorium, classrooms, and lecture halls were also moved into the North Wing, allowing their spaces in the Original Building to be renovated as gallery space. In 1983, a West Wing, designed by the Cleveland architectural firm of Dalton, van Dijk, Johnson, & Partners, was completed. This provided larger library space, as well as nine new galleries. Between 2001 and 2012, the 1958 and 1983 additions were demolished. A new wrap-around building, and east and west wings were constructed. Designed by

Rafael Viñoly Rafael Viñoly Beceiro (born 1944) is a Uruguayan architect. He is the principal of Rafael Viñoly Architects, which he founded in 1983. The firm has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, London, Manchester, Abu Dhabi, and Buenos Aires. Viñ ...

, this $350 million project doubled the museum's size to . To integrate the new east and west wings with the Breuer building to the north, a new structure was built along the south side of the 1971 addition, creating extensive new gallery space on two levels, as well as providing for a museum store and other amenities. Viñoly covered the space created by the demolition of the 1958 and 1983 structures with a glass-roofed atrium. The east wing opened in 2009, and the north wing and atrium in 2012. The West Wing opened on January 2, 2014.

Expansion in the 21st century

Cleveland Museum of Art atrium expansion 2012

The museum's building and renovation project, "Building for the Future", began in 2005 and was originally targeted for completion in 2012 (though it was not completed until 2013) at projected costs of $258 million.Carol Vogel (January 6, 2006)
Cleveland Museum Gets New Director
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. The museum celebrated the official completion of the renovation and expansion project with a grand opening celebration held on December 31, 2013, and additional activities that continued through the first week of 2014. The $350 million project—two-thirds of which was earmarked for the complete renovation of the original 1916 structure—added two new wings, and was the largest cultural project in Ohio's history. The new east and west wings, as well as the enclosing of the atrium courtyard under a soaring glass canopy, have brought the museum's total floor space to (an increase of approximately 65%). The first phase of the project had $9.3 million in cost overruns; the opening was delayed by 9 months. Museum director

Timothy Rub Timothy F. Rub (born 1952) is an American museum director and art historian. He currently holds the position of the George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of the largest museums in the Unite ...

assured the public that the increase in quality would be worth both the wait and expense. In June 2008, after being closed for nearly three years for the overhaul, the museum reopened 19 of its permanent galleries to the public in the renovated 1916 building main floor. On June 27, 2009, the newly constructed East Wing (which contains the Impressionist, Contemporary, and Modern art collections) opened to the public. Clevelandartfountain

On June 26, 2010, the ground level of the 1916 building reopened. It now houses the collections of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sub-Saharan African, Byzantine, and Medieval art. The expanded museum includes enhanced visitor amenities, such as new restrooms, an expanded store and café, a sit-down gourmet restaurant, parking capacity increased to 620 spaces, and a glass-covered courtyard. On June 12, 2021, Cleveland Museum of Art opened a community arts center in Cleveland's Clark-Fulton neighborhood. It hosts former Parade the Circle floats, displays and art that were previously in temporary storage.

Wade Park

Wade Park includes an outdoor gallery displaying part of the museum's holdings in the Wade Park Fine Arts Garden. The bulk of this collection is located between the original 1916 main entrance to the building and the

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. Highlights of the public sculpture include the large cast of

Chester Beach Chester A. Beach (May 23, 1881 – August 6, 1956) was an American sculptor who was known for his busts and medallic art. Early life Beach was born in San Francisco, California. He studied initially at the California School of Mechanical Arts ...

's 1927 ''Fountain of the Waters''; a monument to the Polish expatriate and

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

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Tadeusz Kościuszko Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko ( be, Andréj Tadévuš Banavientúra Kasciúška, en, Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kosciuszko; 4 or 12 February 174615 October 1817) was a Polish Military engineering, military engineer, statesman, an ...

; and the 1928 bronze statuary sundial by Frank Jirouch, ''Night Passing the Earth to Day'', which sits across Wade Lagoon from the museum, near the park's entrance on Euclid Avenue.

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

's ''

The Thinker ''The Thinker'' (french: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, usually placed on a stone pedestal. The work depicts a nude male figure of heroic size sitting on a rock. He is seen leaning over, his right elbow placed on his left t ...

'' is installed at the top of the museum's main staircase. After being partially destroyed in a 1970 bombing (allegedly by the Weathermen), the statue was never restored. Art historians knew that Rodin was involved in the original casting of this sculpture. The 1970 damage (noted on a plaque since mounted at the base of the statue's pedestal) is considered to have made this casting unique among the more than twenty original large castings of this work.

Collections

The Cleveland Museum of Art divides its collections into 16 departments, including Chinese Art, Modern European Art, African Art, Drawings, Prints, European Art, Textiles and Islamic Art, American Painting and Sculpture, Greek and Roman Art, Contemporary Art, Medieval Art, Decorative Art and Design, Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art, Japanese and Korean Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, and Photography. Artists represented by significant works include

Olivuccio di Ciccarello Olivuccio Ceccarello di Ciccarello (died 1439) was an Italian painter. Little is known of his life. He was a native of Camerino and was active from 1388 until his death. In 2002 works formerly attributed to an obscure painter named Carlo da ...

Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered ...

, Giambattista Pittoni,

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

, El Greco,

Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...

, Rubens,

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group ...

Gerard David Gerard David (c. 1460 – 13 August 1523) was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color. Only a bare outline of his life survives, although some facts are known. He may have been the Meester ...

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

J.M.W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbule ...

, Dalí,

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Re ...

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

('' The Call''), Frederic Edwin Church,

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly th ...

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, and George Bellows. The museum has been active recently in acquiring later 20th-century art, having added important works by

Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

Christo Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific art, site-specific environmental art, environmental art i ...

, Anselm Kiefer,

Ronald Davis Ronald "Ron" Davis (born 1937) is an American painter whose work is associated with geometric abstraction, abstract illusionism, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge painting, shaped canvas painting, color field painting, and 3D computer graphics ...

Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...

, Leon Kossoff,

Jack Whitten Jack Whitten (December 5, 1939 – January 20, 2018) was an American painter and sculptor. In 2016, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts. Life Whitten was born in 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama. Planning a career as an army doctor, Whitten ent ...

Morris Louis Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D. ...

Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Robert Mangold Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold. Early life and education Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York, North Tonawanda, New York (s ...

, Ching Ho Cheng,

Mark Tansey Mark Tansey (born 1949) is an American painter. Life Tansey had an early introduction to art. These early childhood experiences had a profound effect on Tansey's painting style from the inception of his career as an artist. Many of Tansey's pa ...

and

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

, among others. The museum's African art collection consists of 300 traditional,

sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...

works from the Bini, Congo, Senufo, and

Yoruba people The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

s, mostly donated by Cleveland collector Katherine C. White. The museum is especially strong in the field of Asian art, possessing one of the best collections in the U.S. In June 2004, the museum acquired an ancient

bronze sculpture Bronze is the most popular metal for Casting (metalworking), cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as w ...

of ''

Apollo Sauroktonos ''Apollo Sauroktonos'' (Apollo Lizard-killer) is the title of several 1st - 2nd century AD Roman marble copies of an original by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. The statues depict a nude adolescent Apollo about to catch a lizard climbing u ...

'', believed to be an original work by

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubita ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. Because the work has a contested provenance, the museum continues to study the dating and attribution of the sculpture. In 2011, Michael Bennet, the Greek and Roman arts curator, announced that he had dated the piece to 350 B.C. to 250 B.C. In 2013, the museum held a focus exhibition on the statue. It announced reattribution of the work as ''Apollo the Python-Slayer'', and said that the statue was almost certainly an original work by Praxiteles himself, and that laboratory investigations and expert testimony conclusively show the bronze was neither a recent discovery nor recovered from the sea. In 2008, the United States Postal Service selected the Cleveland Museum's famed Botticelli painting entitled ''Virgin and Child with the Young John the Baptist'' as the Christmas stamp for that year.

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Cleveland Museum of Art - damaged Thinker

The Cleveland Museum of Art's Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection holds pieces dating from 1800 to 1960, and contains about 537 pieces. The collection contains Impressionism and Post-impressionism works, avant-garde art styles, and German Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit art. File:Cupid and psyche.jpg, ''Cupid and Psyche, by

Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...

, 1817 File:Joseph_Mallord_William_Turner_012.jpg, '' The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons'', by J. M. W. Turner, 1834–35 File:Berthe Morisot Reading.jpg, ''Reading'', by Berthe Morisot, 1873 File:The Red Kerchief, by Claude Monet, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.39.jpg, ''The Red Kerchief Portrait of Madame Monet'', by

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

European Painting and Sculpture

This collection holds pieces dating from 1500 to 1800, with major works representing Italian Baroque, Spanish Baroque, Italian Renaissance, as well as significant French, British, and Dutch paintings. File:Caravaggio - The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew - Post-Restoration.jpg, ''The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew'',

, 1607 - Post-Restoration File:Mattia Preti - Saint Paul the Hermit - 1969.109 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tiff, ''Saint Paul the Hermit'',

Mattia Preti Mattia Preti (24 February 1613 – 3 January 1699) was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Saint John. Life Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was called ''Il Ca ...

, 1663 File:Portrait of a Woman by Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen, 1619 - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08862.JPG, Portrait of a Woman, by Cornelius Johnson, 1619 File:Frans Hals - Tieleman Roosterman 1634.jpg, ''

Tieleman Roosterman Tieleman Roosterman (1598 – 1673), was a Dutch cloth merchant and friend of Willem van Heythuysen. Roosterman is best remembered today for his portrait painted by Frans Hals. Biography According to Pieter Biesboer he is possibly also the s ...

'',

, 1634 File:Francisco de Zurbarán 054.jpg, '' The House in Nazareth'', by

Francisco de Zurbarán Francisco de Zurbarán ( , ; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish Painting, painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nicknam ...

, c. 1640 File:Clevelandart 1981.18.jpg, ''Holy Family on the Steps'',

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...

, 1648 File:A Hare and a Leg of Lamb (Oudry).jpg, '' A Hare and a Leg of Lamb'',

Jean-Baptiste Oudry Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...

, 1742

American Painting and Sculpture

The collection is concise, containing about 300 paintings and 90 sculptures. Major attractions in the collection include William Sideny Mount's ''The Power of Music'', Frederich Edwin Church's ''Twilight in the Wilderness'', and Albert Pinkham Ryder's ''The Racetrack (Death on a Pale Horse)''. A number of Cleveland-based artists are also included in the museum's holdings, placing an emphasis on local art. File:Twilight in the Wilderness by Frederic Edwin Church (3).jpg, ''

Twilight in the Wilderness ''Twilight in the Wilderness'' is an 1860 oil painting by American painter Frederic Edwin Church. The woodlands of the northeastern United States are shown against a setting sun that intensely colors the dramatic altocumulus clouds. Church schola ...

'', by Frederic Edwin Church, 1860 File:Albert Pinkham Ryder 002.jpg, ''The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse)'', by

Albert Pinkham Ryder Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...

Photography

The Cleveland Museum of Art contains a small collection of fine art photography, dating back to 1893. Of special note are pieces from photography's first contributors, particularly French, English, and American photographers. Other highlights of the collection are "photography with complete sets of ''The North American Indian'' by Edward S. Curtis and ''Camera Work''; surrealist photography created primarily between the two world wars; and Cleveland-specific subject matter produced by regional and national photographers". File:A Nakoaktok Chief's Daughter (2838815503).jpg, A Nakoaktok Chief's Daughter File:Allie Mae Burroughs print.jpg,

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans' work from ...

, ''Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama'', 1936.

Decorative Art and Design

An internationally renowned collection, the Decorative Art and Design collection "consists of useful objects in which the form and decoration are the primary focus, not objects intended purely as sculpture" File:Cabinet, c. 1690, ebony, metal and tortoise shell, André-Charles Boulle, Cleveland Museum of Art.JPG, A cabinet from 1690

Ingalls Library

In addition to its comprehensive collection of fine art, the Cleveland Museum of Art is also home to the Ingalls Library, one of the largest art libraries in the United States. As part of the initial 1913 plan by the museum's founders, a library of 10,000 volumes was to be assembled, to include photographs and archival works. By the 1950s, the collection of books alone had surpassed 37,000 and the photographic collection neared 47,000. By the 21st century, the library had more than 500,000 volumes (and 500,000 digitized slides); renovation of the library space was one of the focal points in the museum's $350 million expansion.

ARTLENS Gallery

The ARTLENS Gallery is a series of interactive displays and a mobile app that allow visitors to view and interact with the museum's digitized collection. ARTLENS is divided into four components: * The ArtLens Wall is a 40-foot display that lets visitors browse and scale all works that are displayed in the museum, as well as some artworks that are not. The wall rotates through artworks in groups organized by criteria such as type, shape, and color. * The ArtLens Exhibition is a rotating selection of artworks that are showcased through digital gesture-based games and activities. Examples of these activities are automatically matching the shape of a user's hand gestures to an artwork, or having the user imitate poses found in various works, which are then scored for accuracy. * The ArtLens Studio is a series of digital studios for visitors to make their own artwork, such as creating digital pottery by mimicking a potter's movements, or creating collages from images provided by the museum. * The ArtLens mobile application provides information about the museum and lists of all its artworks. The app is able to communicate via Bluetooth to beacons located throughout the museum to determine the user's location, and allows the user to mark and save artworks they come across. The app connects to the previously mentioned ArtLens Exhibition and Wall. Following the launch of ARTLENS, the Cleveland Museum of Art conducted a two-year study to see how the gallery impacts visitor engagement. Surveys from November 2017 and January 2018 of 438 ARTLENS visitors found that 76% of viewers felt that the gallery "enhanced their overall museum experience"; 74% felt that it "encouraged them to look closely at art and notice new things"; and 73% said that it "increased their interest in the museum's collection." Museum visitors born between 1981 and 1996 were 15% more likely to visit the gallery compared to older individuals. The ARTLENS system also gathers analytical data; the time patrons spent looking at artworks went from an average of two-to-three seconds to fifteen seconds.

Programs

The Cleveland Museum of Art also maintains a schedule of special exhibitions, lectures, films and musical programs. The department of performing arts, music and film hosts a film series and the museum's Performing Arts Series, which brings the creative energies of internationally renowned artists into Cleveland. The department of education at CMA creates programs for lifelong learning from lectures, talks and studio classes to outreach programs and community events, such as Parade the Circle", Chalk Festival and the "Winter Lights Lantern Festival". Educational programs include distance learning, "Art to Go", and the "Educator's Academy". The museum is also home to the Ingalls Library, one of the largest art museum libraries in the United States with over 500,000 volumes.

Open Access collection materials

In January 2019, the Cleveland Museum of Art announced that it was waiving its rights to "roughly 30,000 of the 61,328 objects in its permanent collection considered to be in the public domain". They are using the Creative Commons – Zero license for high-resolution images and data about its collection. Additionally, metadata for more than 61,000 pieces in its collection have been made available. The Open Access material is available on a special section of the museum website.

Governance

Attendance

The museum reported attendance of 597,715 during the period between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, the highest total in more than a decade."Cleveland Museum of Art Reports Strong Gains in Attendance, Membership, Fundraising"
Press release,

The Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

. In 2018, the museum had a record 769,435 visitors, replacing the previous record of 719,620 in 1987.

Finance

In 1958, a $35-million bequest by industrialist Leonard C. Hanna Jr. vaulted the Cleveland Museum of Art into the ranks of the country's richest art museums. Today, the museum receives operating support from the

Ohio Arts Council The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) is an agency serving the U.S. state of Ohio. History Established in 1965, its mission is to "foster and encourage the development of the arts and assist the preservation of Ohio's cultural heritage." Each year it awar ...

through state tax dollars. It is also funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. The museum derives around two thirds of its $36 million budget from interest on its endowment, which was reported as $750 million in 2014. The museum has an acquisition fund of $277 million, from which it draws about $13 million a year for purchase of works for its collections.

Marketing

The museum has also taken an active role in presenting music concerts and lectures. These include performances by

Chanticleer (ensemble) Chanticleer () is a full-time male classical vocal ensemble based in San Francisco, California, founded in 1978. It is known for its interpretations of Renaissance music, for which they were founded, but also a wide repertoire of jazz, gospel an ...

Roomful of Teeth Roomful of Teeth is a vocal ensemble founded in 2009 by Brad Wells. Its stated mission is to "mine the expressive potential of the human voice".

, and

John Luther Adams John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953) is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work '' Become Ocean'' was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Priz ...

among others. Image:WinterLightsFest.JPG, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Winter Lights Lantern Festival. Image:NocheFlamenca.JPG, ''Noche Flamenca'', part of CMA's VIVA! & Gala, now called the Performing Arts Series.

Directors

* William M. Griswold (2014–) * Fred Bidwell (2013–2014, interim director) * David Franklin (2010–2013) * Deborah Gribbon (2009–2010, interim director) *

(2006–2009) *

Katharine Lee Reid Katharine Lee Reid (December 12, 1941 – September 22, 2022) was an American art historian, curator, and museum director. She was a director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art and deputy director of the Art Ins ...

(2000–2006)Judith H. Dobrzynski (January 5, 2000)
Museum Chief in Cleveland
''

''. * Kate Sellars (1999–2000, interim director) * Robert P. Bergman (1993–1999)

William H. Honan William Holmes Honan (May 11, 1930 – April 28, 2014) was an American journalist and author who directed coverage of the arts at ''The New York Times'' as its culture editor in the 1980s. Honan held senior editorial positions at the ''New York Tim ...

(May 7, 1999)
Robert P. Bergman, 53, Head Of Cleveland Museum of Art
''

''. * Evan H. Turner (1983–1993) * Dr. Sherman E. Lee (1958–1982) * William M. Milliken (1930–1958) * Frederic Allen Whiting (1913–1930)

In popular culture

The museum is the stand-in for the fictional

S.H.I.E.L.D. S.H.I.E.L.D. is a fictional espionage, special law enforcement, and counter-terrorism agency appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in ''Strange Tales'' #135 (August 1965), it often dea ...

headquarters in the

Marvel Cinematic Universe The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films produced by Marvel Studios. The films are based on characters that appear in American comic books published by ...

and can be extensively seen in several office and establishing shots of '' Captain America: The Winter Soldier'' (2014). In several scenes, the museum's atrium can be seen as the "lobby" for the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

-based government organization. The outside of the museum and elevator tower are in other shots as well.

References

External links

*
FRAME
– The Cleveland Museum of Art is a member of FRAME (French Regional American Museum Exchange) and has presented and contributed to FRAME-sponsored exhibitions. {{Authority control Beaux-Arts architecture in Ohio Museums in Cleveland Art museums and galleries in Ohio University Circle Marcel Breuer buildings Rafael Viñoly buildings FRAME Museums Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Art museums established in 1916 1916 establishments in Ohio Museums of American art Asian art museums in the United States Egyptological collections in the United States Museums of ancient Greece in the United States Museums of ancient Rome in the United States Mesoamerican art museums in the United States African art museums in the United States