Cincinnati Museum of Art
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 Location within Ohio
Location within Ohio
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| Established | 1881 |
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| Location | 953 Eden Park Dr. Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Coordinates | 39°06′53″N 84°29′49″W / 39.114637°N 84.496965°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Visitors | 250,000 |
| Director | Cameron Kitchin |
| Curator | Cynthia Amnéus, Chief Curator and Curator of Fashion Arts and Textiles Dr. Julie Aronson, American Painting and Sculpture Amy Miller Dehan, Decorative Arts Brian Sholis, Photography Kristin Spangenberg, Prints Dr. Hou-mei Sung, Asian Art |
| Public transit access | SORTA Metro bus #1 |
| Website | www. cincinnatiartmuseum.org |
The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 67,000 works spanning 6,000 years of human history make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest. Museum founders debated locating the museum in either Burnet Woods, Eden Park, or downtown Cincinnati on Washington Park. Charles West, the major donor of the early museum, cast his votes in favor of Eden Park sealing its final location. The Romanesque-revival building designed by Cincinnati architect James W. McLaughlin opened in 1886. A series of additions and renovations have considerably altered the building over its 120-year history.
In 2003, a major addition, The Cincinnati Wing was added to house a permanent exhibit of art created for Cincinnati or by Cincinnati artists since 1788. The Cincinnati Wing includes fifteen new galleries covering 18,000 square feet (1,700 m2) of well-appointed space, and 400 objects. The Odoardo Fantacchiotti angels are two of the largest pieces in the collection. Fantacchiotti created these angels for the main altar of St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in the late 1840s. They were among the first European sculptures to come to Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Wing also contains the work of Frank Duveneck, Rookwood Pottery, Robert Scott Duncanson Mitchell and Rammelsberg (Cincinnati's premier 19th-century furniture manufacturer) and a tall case clock by Luman Watson.
In the late nineteenth century, public art museums were still very much a new phenomenon, especially as far west as Cincinnati. Following the success of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia, the Women's Art Museum Association was organized in Cincinnati with the intent of bringing such an institution to the region for the benefit of all citizens. Enthusiasm for these goals grew steadily and by 1881 the Cincinnati Museum Association was incorporated. The art museum was at first temporarily housed in the south wing of Music Hall in Over-the-Rhine. Just five years later, or on May 17, 1886, the Art Museum building in Eden Park was dedicated with elaborate ceremonies.
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Wikipedia