Prologuing the Collection

On November 7, 1883, an exhibition of 453 works by 137 artists opened at the English Hotel on the downtown Indianapolis Circle. It was 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. The success of that exhibition, which attracted sizable crowds throughout its three-week run, established the Art Association as a viable factor in the local cultural scene and led to more exhibitions, lectures, and eventually a campus featuring both a museum and an art school. 

Join us on a time-traveling tour that will explore the Museum's humble beginnings in 1883 through the 1940s. Learn about the donors who laid the groundwork for our collection such as Booth Tarkington, Frank Ball, Dr. George J. A. Clowes, Caroline Marmon Fesler, and Eli Lilly. See some of the Museum's first collected artworks while contemplating their importance and how the collection has developed over time. The Art Association of Indianapolis was established "wholly in the interest and for the benefit of the community" and has since evolved into one of the largest art museums in the country, with 5,000 years of art history and active exhibition and education programs that far surpass anything the Art Association’s founders could have imagined.