Figge Art Museum

The Figge Art Museum is an AIA award-winning art museum in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region. The Figge works closely with several regional universities and colleges (see below) as an art resource and collections hub for a number of higher education programs.

The museum opened on August 6, 2005, and is the re-named successor to the Davenport Museum of Art, which was opened on October 10, 1925, as the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery. The museum has its roots in the Davenport Art Association, which was founded before February 23, 1878, and was re-located on November 15, 1889, to the Bianca Wheeler art studio. The Figge Art Museum is one of the oldest art institutions in the country and is considered the first municipal art gallery in the United States.

The new building was designed by Stirling Prize winning Modernist British architect David Chipperfield. The Figge Art Museum gets its name from the V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Foundation, which donated $13 million towards its $47 million construction. The Figge family, a local banking family of Swiss origin, has a long tradition of philanthropy and cultural enrichment.

The first pieces of its collections were donated by Davenport community leader Charles Ficke (1850-1931), a successful lawyer and former mayor, who collected art from around the world. Robert E. Harsche, then Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, reported that to his knowledge no American public art gallery had "started out with so large a number of important paintings as a nucleus."

Figge art collection

The museum has over 4,000 works of art, ranging from the 16th century to the present, and is best known for its extensive collection of Haitian, Colonial Mexican and Midwestern art, particularly pieces by Thomas Hart Benton, Marvin Cone and Grant Wood, including the only self-portrait Wood ever painted. In 1990, Grant Wood's estate, which included his personal effects and various works of art, became the property of the Figge Art Museum through his sister Nan Wood Graham, the woman portrayed in American Gothic.

The institution also houses a substantial American collection (including works by Albert Bierstadt, James McNeill Whistler, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns), European art (including work by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Francisco Goya, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Henry Raeburn, Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre-Auguste Renoir), and works from East Asia (with pieces by Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kunisada). As owners of Grant Wood's estate, the museum is also home to the Grant Wood Archives, and received substantial support from the The Henry Luce Foundation for the conservation of these archives.

The museum has an important and growing collection of pieces by Frank Lloyd Wright, the American architect and designer from the Midwest.

Its inaugural exhibition, "The Great American Thing: 1915-1935" opened September 17, 2005, and featured major works from early American Modernists.

University of Iowa art collection

The Figge Art Museum currently houses the University of Iowa Museum of Art collection. The collection, which totals over 12,000 works, includes significant paintings by American artists such as Jackson Pollock, Stuart Davis, Richard Diebenkorn, Peter Golfinopoulos, Sam Gilliam, Adolph Gottlieb, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, and Marsden Hartley, as well as European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Max Beckmann, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Maurice Prendergast, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Lyonel Feininger, Juan Gris, Alexej von Jawlensky, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Giorgio Morandi, and Chaim Soutine. The collection also contains significant pieces from sub-Saharan Africa, Pre-Columbian art, a significant collection of European and American prints and drawings, as well as many other areas of the world.

Western Illinois University graduate program in Museum Studies

The Figge Art Museum is home to Western Illinois University's graduate program in Museum Studies, which offers a Master of Arts degree in the various aspects of museum management, such as curatorial design, museum administration and finance, art education, collections management, and marketing/PR.

Knox College partnership

The Figge Art Museum's senior curator is a joint-appointment with Knox College's Department of Art History. The current incumbent is the senior professor in the art history department at the college. Works from Knox College's art collection are also housed and displayed at the Figge Art Museum.

National Center for Midwest Art and Design

The National Center for Midwest Art and Design, known as NCMAD, is based at the Figge Art Museum. NCMAD's purpose is to promote the study and appreciation of 19th and 20th century Midwest artists, designers, and architects from the Midwestern United States ( Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). NCMAD scholars and visitors have access to the Figge's extensive collection of original works by a number of significant Midwesterners, such as Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, Marvin Cone, John Bloom, and Frank Lloyd Wright. NCMAD hosts the Grant Wood Estate & Archive and the New Bauhaus Archive project.

Other information

The museum is 115,000 square feet (10,683 m²) and has been accredited by the American Association of Museums since 1973.

Directors

List of the chief executive offers of the Figge Art Museum and its predecessors (Davenport Museum of Art, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, etc.):

• Dr Sean O'Harrow, 2007-Present (formerly of Cambridge University)
• Mr Thomas Gildehaus, interim director, 2006-2007 (current President of the Figge Art Museum Board, formerly of Deere & Company)
• Ms Linda Banks Downs, 2003-2006 (formerly of the National Gallery of Art and currently Executive Director of the College Art Association)
• Dr William Steven Bradley, 1992-2002 (former director of the Alexandria Museum of Art, Louisiana, and currently at Mesa State College)
• Mr Mark Towner, acting director, 1991-1992 (currently at Associate Dean at Endicott College, Massachusetts)
• Mr Daniel E. Stetson, 1987-1991 (currently Executive Director of the Polk Museum of Art)
• Mr L. G. Hoffman, 1971-1987 (formerly of the Huntington Museum of Art and the Des Moines Art Center)
• Mr Clifford Larson, 1971
• Mrs Elizabeth Moeller Geiken Rochow, 1938-1971
• Ms Meta Belz Nelson, 1935-1938
• Mr Herbert Sanborn, 1933-1935 (formerly of the Worcester Art Museum)
• Ms Freda House, 1930-1933
• Mr Herman More, acting director, 1928-1930 (left to be Curator of the Whitney Museum)
• Mr Charles H. Platt, 1928
• Mr R. J. McKinney, acting director, 1925-1928 (formerly of the Art Students League of New York and subsequently named director of the Baltimore Museum of Art)

References

External links

• figgeartmuseum.org Official website
• Quad City Times articles about the Figge Art Museum

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