History
Since its founding as The Art Association of Indianapolis on November 7, 1883, Newfields has grown into a 152-acre cultural campus that is home to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one of the ten largest and ten oldest general art museums in the nation; the Lilly House, a National Historic Landmark; The Garden, featuring 40 acres of contemporary and historic gardens, a working greenhouse and an orchard; and The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, one of the largest art and nature parks in the country. The Newfields campus extends outside of Indianapolis with Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Ind.—one of the nation’s most highly regarded examples of mid-century Modernist architecture.
1883
On November 7, 1883, an exhibition of 453 works by 137 artists opens at the English Hotel on the downtown Indianapolis Circle. It is the first exhibition organized by the Art Association of Indianapolis, which well-known suffragette May Wright Sewall, her husband Theodore, and a small group of art-minded citizens had formed a few months earlier.
1895
The Art Association receives $225,000 from the estate of Indianapolis real estate investor John Herron to build a permanent art gallery and school on 16th and Pennsylvania Streets, which will be called The John Herron Art Institute.
1902
The John Herron Art Institute opens in temporary quarters at 16th and Pennsylvania Streets, the site where the Association intends to build. The art school is established.
1910
The John Herron Art Institute presents a memorial exhibition of the works of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, known for his public commissions honoring Civil War heroes of the North. Attendance totals 56,574.
1927
Sixteen civic leaders found the Gamboliers. For the next few years, they gamble on "promising artists," adding works by Modigliani, Pendergast, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others to the collection – 167 works in all, for a little more than $2,000.
1929
A new and larger school building designed by renowned architect Paul Phillipe Cret opens, funded anonymously by board member Caroline Marmon Fesler.
1937
Author Booth Tarkington, Muncie industrialist Frank Ball, and Eli Lilly & Company research director Dr. George J. A. Clowes are among the lenders to an exhibition of paintings and prints by Dutch Masters, including Rembrandt, Hals, Ruisdael, Steen, and Vermeer. Attendance for this exhibition exceeds 34,000.
1943
Art Association president Caroline Marmon Fesler makes the first of a remarkable series of gifts to the collection. Over the years, Fesler gifts paintings by Hobbema, Cuyp, Corneille de Lyon, Seurat, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Picasso.
1947
Eli Lilly makes the first of his gifts of Chinese art. Between 1947 and 1961, he purchases about 200 bronzes, ceramics, jades and paintings for the Museum’s collection.
Six women complete training to serve as volunteer guides for visiting school groups and the Museum’s well-respected docent program is born.
1958
The Alliance of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, an organization with the mission of increasing the effectiveness of the museum as a cultural center in the city and state is founded.
1964
Out of space in the Museum and with no land to build on, the board hires development consultants G. A. Brakeley & Company to advise on fundraising and identifying a new site for the Museum.
1966
Ruth Lilly and Josiah K. Lilly donate their parents’ estate, Oldfields, to the Art Association.
1969
The Art Association changes its name to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
1970
Herman Krannert and his wife Ellnora give the lead gift of $3 million to construct the Krannert Pavilion, and it opens in October 1970.
1972
96 acres of White River floodplain are given to the Museum by the firm Huber, Hunt and Nichols, who operate the quarry there.
Clowes Pavilion opens as a memorial to Edith Whitehill Clowes. A bequest of approximately $1 million from Mrs. Grace Showalter is received to build Showalter Pavilion, a theater that would be the home of the Indianapolis Civic Theatre. The Sutphin Fountain is dedicated.
1975
Following the dedication of the new Galleries, membership triples to 12,000. During a decade of rampant inflation, the IMA begins to build an operating endowment.
1976
Summer Nights Film Series launches.
1979
The Museum receives W. J. Holliday’s collection of Neo-Impressionist paintings, now the largest public collection of Neo-Impressionist paintings in the U.S.
The largest collection of works by J. M. W. Turner outside Great Britain accumulated by Indianapolis attorney Kurt F. Pantzer becomes a permanent part of the collection.
1983
Happy 100 Years! The IMA’s Centennial Celebration is on June 25, 1983.
1990
Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Eiteljorg donate their collections of African and South Pacific Art, numbering more than 1,500 works to the Museum.
1997
Through a combination of gift and purchase, the Museum acquires 101 works by Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven from the collection of Samuel Josefowitz.
1999
The Clowes Collection, 100 works including Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco, Cranach, Jan Breugal, Constable, Claude, and other European masters, is committed to the Museum by the Clowes Fund.
The Ravine Garden is restored to the original Percival Gallagher design with a lead gift from Dr. George F. and Peggy Rapp. The garden is renamed as the Rapp Family Ravine Garden in their honor.
2000s
Plans are made to begin developing The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, with support from Richard M. Fairbanks in honor of his second wife, Virginia.
2000
The Museum acquires 75 hanging scrolls and folding screens representing major artists and styles of Japan’s Edo period.
2001
A $74 million expansion and renovation transforms the IMA to “The New IMA” to include architectural elements like the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, designed to be more accessible and inclusive to the public.
2002
The IMA unveils the newly restored mansion, Oldfields–Lilly House & Gardens. In 2003, it is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
2005
The New IMA opens to the public May 5 and features the new Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, Wood Gallery Pavilion, and Deer Zink Special Events Pavilion.
2009
The Miller family donates Miller House and Garden, located in Columbus, Indiana to the IMA. Doors to this modern engineering marvel officially open to the public in May 2011.
2010
The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park opens.
2017
The IMA announces it will unify the entire campus under one name—Newfields, A Place for Nature and the Arts. Newfields is home to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Fairbanks Park, The Garden, Lilly House, and the Elder Greenhouse. Miller House and Garden extends the Newfields brand into southern Indiana.
2018
Winterlights opens for the first time, welcoming guests to The Garden year-round.
2019
Harvest Nights opens for the first time, offering guests a “spooky, not scary” experience.
2020
During a four-year renovation of the European Galleries, Newfields loans 60 Old Masters including Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hobbema, Brueghel, and Kalf on a multi-city tour in China.
2021
The first installation of THE LUME Indianapolis featuring the works of Vincent Van Gogh opens in June.
2022
The Clowes Pavilion Reimagined has its grand reopening on March 25, exactly 50 years after the original 1972 opening. New additions include a digital ceiling, major infrastructure updates to improve accessibility, thoughtfully paired artworks, and engaging interpretive elements.
2023
Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait is officially transferred to Newfields by The Clowes Fund completing The Clowes Collection of Old Masters.
2024
Newfields hosts an unveiling ceremony of the 2024 USPS Christmas stamp featuring Madonna and Child from the permanent collection.
Van Gogh’s Poets and Lovers travels to London.
