Museum houses "arguably...the best American art collection in the state"
By Peter Ciancone
Now more than 60 years old, the Swope Art Museum remains dedicated to ideals of its founder, Sheldon Swope: Provide fine art for public viewing at no cost to the public.
"Towns of this size don't have this kind of museum," said David Vollmer, the Swope's ninth director. With a smile betraying his opinion on the matter, he added, "Arguably, we have the best American art collection in the state."
"It's important to the country, not just to Terre Haute," said Wieke van der Weijden Benjamin, president of the Swope's board of overseers.
ide before moving to Terre Haute in 2000. "It's unique in its scope and its collection, particularly its focus on American and Midwestern art."
The Swope holds works by famous Americans Thomas Hart Benton, Anna Hyatt Huntington and Edward Hopper. Its Grant Wood is currently part of an exhibition at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The show will proceed to the Smithsonian Institution when it closes in Iowa.
Vollmer credits the Swope's first director, John Rogers Cox, for establishing its excellent collection.
"He had an incredible eye. He got some things we could never dream of buying today," Vollmer said. Recognizing the talent of the artist while the artist is still producing made Cox's contribution especially important. "If you buy works by living artists, you can get them for a reasonable price."
The collection features Terre Haute and Indiana artists, as well, with names such as painter James Farrington Gookins, a local artist whose name belongs to one of its prominent neighborhoods, sculptor Janet Scudder and miniaturist Amalia Kussner Coudert.
A gallery tour is a journey through America's heart and soul.
Georges Schreiber's "From Arkansas" introduces us to a farm woman, forearms work-hardened, looking across her austere surroundings: simple home, old car, bare tree branches.
Gookins' "Hummingbird Hunters" is a 100-year-old floral fantasy, filled with hummingbird-sized people chasing the delicate flyers.
"We have all the Marilyns out for the first time in awhile," Vollmer said of the Pop Art exhibit. Andy Warhol's portraits of the movie star use wildly different contrasts and colors to place her in her modern context.
These are just some of the between 2,000 and 3,000 works in Swope's collection, only a fraction of which are shown at any time, Vollmer said.
The Swope is sustained by the proceeds of its original endowment and by grants and private donations. It has expanded its educational outreach programs since 2001, growing to almost 400 last summer from 70 children involved at the beginning, Vollmer said.
"It stays with them. It takes hold of them. It changes their lives," Benjamin said of the exposure of young people to the arts. She said she wished more people were exposed to the fine collection of art in Terre Haute's premier art museum.
She said she and her husband, Lloyd, weren't aware of the quality of the Swope's collection until after they had a chance to see it firsthand.
"We didn't read anywhere about this little jewel," she said. "It's symptomatic of Terre Haute. We don't like to boast about our strengths.
"I think it's amazing that Terre Haute has a museum of this quality," she said.
|
Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis |
| Pop goes the art: The Swope Art Museum is currently featuring Pop art in a show sponsored by Vectren. |
MORE PHOTOS>>
SWOPE ART MUSEUM FAST FACTS
Location: 25 S. Seventh St.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m. Saturday
Admission: Free
For more information: call (812) 238-1676 or log on at www.swope.org.
-- Created through the
will of Sheldon Swope (1843-1929), jeweler and businessman born
in LaPorte who moved to Terre Haute after serving in the Union
Army during the Civil War
-- Swope's will, written in 1903, specified that the three-member
board overseeing the museum must include at least one woman
-- Housed in building built by Swope in 1902
-- Opened in 1942
-- Opening delayed by more than 10 years by challenge to Swope's
will made by a man claiming to be his son; Swope had no heir
-- Has had nine directors:
John Rogers Cox 1942-44
Allen D. Albert 1944-60
Frank Bilodeau 1960-65
Howard E. Wooden 1966-75
James D. Browne 1975-78
Robert Kinsman 1978-85
Edward Quick 1985-95
David Butler 1996-2000
David Vollmer 2001-present
-- Written about the Swope at its grand opening in April 1942,
in The Art Digest: "Few communities of comparable size (62,000
population) have started their art careers so auspiciously and
with keener awareness of art as an avenue to fuller living."
Source: Swope Art
Museum, Vigo County Public Library