The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collects and exhibits American and European

modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

and

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tr ...

glass art Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including gla ...

, and photography. The museum has been led by Executive Director Nannette Maciejunes since 2003.

History

The Old Art Gallery and School of The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, photograph

The CMA was founded in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. Beginning in 1919, it was housed in the Francis C. Sessions house, a founder of Columbus Art School (later known as Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). Sessions deeded the mansion and property to the art museum, which operated there until 1923. The house was demolished, with the current museum built on its site. CCAD's Beaton Hall includes elements from the entranceway of the Sessions house. The current building was built on the same site from 1929 to 1931, opening on January 22, 1931. In 1974, a visually unobtrusive structure was added to the rear of the building. The museum building was added to 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 ...

on March 19, 1992, under its original name. The Columbus Museum of Art began a massive reconstruction and expansion in 2007. The first new space opened on January 1, 2011, after 13 months of construction. The space, called the Center for Creativity, is an space that includes galleries, gathering areas, and places for workshops that allow visitors to engage in hands-on activities. On October 25, 2015, the new Margaret M. Walter wing opened to the public, adding 50,000 square feet of addition and 40,000 square feet of major renovation to the Museum. The Margaret M. Walter Wing was designed by Michael Bongiorno of the Columbus-based architecture firm DesignGroup. The museum concurrently revealed a new brand identity led by the Columbus, Ohio-based branding agenc
Blackletter
In September 2018, the

Pizzuti Collection The Pizzuti Collection is a museum for contemporary art in Columbus, Ohio, United States. It has been part of the Columbus Museum of Art since September 2018. The three-story gallery is located in the Short North and Victorian Village neighborhood ...

, a museum in the Short North, was donated to the CMA, along with part of its collection. The museum opened as a part of the Columbus Museum of Art that year. The museum and its Pizzuti Collection branch temporarily closed beginning in March 2020 due to the

2020 coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. The Columbus Museum of Art is part of the Monuments Men and Women Museum Network, launched in 2021 by the

Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art The Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art is an American IRS approved 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which honors the legacy of those who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program during and after World War ...

Ross Building layout and architecture

The 1931 museum building, today known as the Elizabeth M. and Richard M. Ross Building, was designed in the Second Renaissance Revival style by Columbus architects Richards, McCarty and Bulford. It has a concrete foundation, walls of limestone and concrete, and a truncated copper hipped roof. The building is horizontal, two stories high, and has a central structure advanced several feet in front of its two wings. The wings feature large limestone friezes, together known as ''The Frederick W. Schumacher Frieze'' or ''Masters of Art''. The work, by Robert Ingersoll Aitken, depicts 68 artists from 490 B.C. to 1925 A.D. The original main entryway consists of three arched portals to the interior. The facade here includes decorative moldings, keystones, bulls-eye medallions, and stone quoins. A frieze hung above the arches, with the name "Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts". A set of sixteen limestone steps leads to the sidewalk, flanked by two Italian-style lamp posts. The Center for Creativity, on the first floor of the museum, includes a Creativity Lounge, The Studio, The Wonder Room, the Big Idea Gallery, and an Open Gallery.

Gallery

File:Columbus Museum of Art 03.jpg, Current museum entrance File:Columbus Museum of Art.jpg, The Ross Building, built in 1931 File:Columbus Museum of Art 07.jpg, The Walter Wing, built in 2015

Collections

The permanent collection includes outstanding late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American and European modern works of art. Major collections include the Ferdinand Howald Collection of early Modernist paintings, the Sirak Collection of

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

and

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

works, the

Photo League The Photo League was a cooperative of photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Founded in 1936, the League included some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century amon ...

Collection, and the Philip and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art. The Museum houses the largest collections of works by Columbus born artists Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Elijah Pierce, and

George Bellows George Wesley Bellows (August 12 or August 19, 1882 – January 8, 1925) was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed Ame ...

. Highlights include early

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

paintings by

Pablo 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

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

, works by

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the a ...

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Printmaking, prints ...

Henri 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 prim ...

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 ...

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...

, and

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the ...

, and installations by Mel Chin, Josiah McElheny, Susan Philipsz, and Allan Sekula. Sculptures include: '' Hare on Ball and Claw'', '' Intermediate Model for the Arch'', '' Out of There'', '' The Family of Man: Figure 2, Ancestor II'', '' The Mountain'', '' Three-Piece Reclining Figure: Draped 1975'', '' Two Lines Up Excentric Variation VI'', '' Wasahaban''.

Selections from the permanent collection

File:Anthony van Dyck - Christian Bruce.jpg,

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh ...

, ''Christian Bruce'', 1635 File:David and Bathsheba by Artemisia Gentileschi.jpg,

Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi (, ; 8 July 1593) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing profess ...

, ''David and Bathsheba'', c. 1610-1675 File:Vigée-Lebrun, Elisabeth - Varvara Naryshkina.jpg,

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...

, ''Varvara Naryshkina'', 1800 File:Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Raphael and the Baker's Daughter (1840).jpg, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, ''Raphael and the Baker's Daughter'', 1840 File:The Coal Carriers by Rosa Bonheur, Columbus Museum of Art.JPG,

Rosa Bonheur Rosa Bonheur (born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur; 16 March 1822 – 25 May 1899) was a French artist known best as a painter of animals ( animalière). She also made sculpture in a realist style. Her paintings include ''Ploughing in the Nivernais'', fir ...

, ''The Coal Carriers'', 1851 File:Winslow Homer - Haymaking (1864).jpg, Winslow Homer, ''Haymaking'', 1864 File:Albert Bierstadt - Landscape (c. 1867-1869).jpg,

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...

, ''Landscape'', c. 1867-1869 File:Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - The Little Bird Nesters (1873-1874).jpg,

Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast o ...

, ''The Little Bird Nesters'', 1873 File:Albert Pinkham Ryder - Spirit of Autumn (c. 1875).jpg,

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 ...

, ''Spirit of Autumn'', 1875 File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Madame Henriot en travesti.jpg,

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

, ''Madame Henriot 'en travesti' (The Page)'', 1875–76 File:Portrait de Victor Chocquet assis, par Paul Cézanne.jpg,

, portrait of '' Victor Chocquet'', 1877 File:Carmela Bertagna John Singer Sargent.jpg,

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

''Carmela Bertagna''
Oil on canvas, 1879 File:Mary Cassatt - Susan Comforting the Baby No. 1 (c. 1881) 01.JPG,

, ''Susan Comforting the Baby No. 1'', c. 1881 File:William Michael Harnett - After the Hunt (1883) 02.jpg,

William Michael Harnett William Michael Harnett (August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892) was an Irish-American painter known for his trompe-l'œil still lifes of ordinary objects. Early life Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the Gr ...

, ''After the Hunt'', 1883 File:The Mediterranean (Cap d'Antibes) by Claude Monet, Columbus Museum of Art .JPG,

, ''The Mediterranean (Cap d'Antibes)'', 1888 File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Christine Lerolle Embroidering (c. 1895).jpg, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, ''Christine Lerolle Embroidering'', c. 1895 File:Henri Rousseau - The tiger hunt.jpg,

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

''Portrait of a Young Woman'', Pastel on paper, 1898 File:Girl Asleep by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Columbus Museum of Art .JPG,

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-century ...

, ''Girl Asleep'', 1905–06 File:'Cosmos' by Marsden Hartley, Columbus Museum of Art.jpg, Marsden Hartley, ''Cosmos'', Oil on Canvas, 1908–09 File:Men and Mountains by Rockwell Kent, Columbus Museum of Art.JPG, Rockwell Kent, ''Men and Mountains'', 1909 File:Middleton Manigault - The Rocket (1909).jpg, Edward Middleton Manigault - ''The Rocket'', 1909 File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Tower Room, Fehmarn (1913) 02.jpg,

, ''Tower Room, Fehmarn'', 1913 File:Juan Gris - Glass of Beer and Playing Cards.jpg,

, ''Glass of Beer and Playing Cards,'' 1914 File:Pre-War Pageant by Marsden Hartley, 1914.JPG, Marsden Hartley, ''Pre-War Pageant'', 1914 File:Jacques Villon, 1914, Portrait de M. J. B. peintre (Jacques Bon), oil on canvas, 121.92 x 81.28 cm, Columbus Museum of Art.jpg, Jacques Villon, ''Portrait de M. J. B. peintre (Jacques Bon)'', 1914 File:Pablo Picasso, 1914-15, Nature morte au compotier (Still Life with Compote and Glass), oil on canvas, 63.5 x 78.7 cm (25 x 31 in), Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.jpg,

, ''Nature morte au compotier (Still Life with Compote and Glass)'', oil on canvas, 1914–15 File:George Wesley Bellows - Riverfront No. 1 (1915).jpg, George Wesley Bellows, ''Riverfront No. 1,'' 1915 File:Twilight Moon by Charles Burchfield, 1916, Columbus Museum of Art.JPG, Charles Burchfield, ''Twilight Moon'', 1916 File:Lhasa,1916.jpg,

Charles Sheeler Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, '' Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized ...

, ''Lhasa'', 1916 File:Delaunay Portuguese Woman.jpg,

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

, ''Portuguese Woman'', Oil on canvas, 1916 File:William Glackens - Beach Scene, New London (1918).jpg, William Glackens, ''Beach Scene, New London," 1918 File:The Tower by Charles Demuth, Columbus Museum of Art.jpg,

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ame ...

, ''The Tower'', 1920

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Ohio 1878 establishments in Ohio Art museums established in 1878 Art museums and galleries in Ohio Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Buildings in downtown Columbus, Ohio Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums in Columbus, Ohio Museums on the National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Columbus, Ohio Broad Street (Columbus, Ohio)