Art Center Mission Statement

The Des Moines Art Center holds excellence to be its defining value.

Our mission is to be a leader in our field by contributing to the cultural record.

We serve our community by engaging people with art, emphasizing the art of our times through our collection and exhibition policies.

We shape the culture of our community, making art accessible to all-enriching and inspiring through educational programs and partnerships.

From this strong local base, we strive to extend our leadership nationally and globally.

History:

The opening of the Des Moines Art Center on June 2, 1948 meant the culmination of more than three decades of planning and work on the part of a group of people who looked forward to having a museum in the city. Spurred by the revelation that seventy-eight-year-old James D. Edmundson, a wealthy citizen, planned to bequeath funds for such an institution, the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts was established in 1916 under the leadership of J.S. (Sanny) Carpenter, a bridge builder who was the leading art collector in the city. The purpose of the association was to bring exhibitions to Des Moines and to acquire works of art to be placed in the future museum. Initial funds came from a grant of $1,500 from the Greater Des Moines Committee, a group composed of business leaders in the city. Annual membership dues of $100 were set aside for the purchase of works of art, and the dues of members paying smaller amounts were used to cover operating expenses. The Des Moines Public Library located at First and Locust Streets provided a gallery on the second floor for touring shows booked by Carpenter.

The first exhibition sponsored by the Fine Arts Association consisted of 300 contemporary paintings by French and Belgian artists which had been shown two years previously at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. This exhibition filled all available space at the library and was viewed by large crowds. At the end of the first year of operation, the association had forty-eight patron members, but found itself without sufficient funds to cover operating costs. The following year, with the help of the Des Moines Women’s Club, the Greater Des Moines Committee, and the Chamber of Commerce, the association was able to bring four exhibitions to the city. From that time until the early 1930s, the association, under Carpenter’s guidance, continued to bring several exhibitions each year.

Most of the works shown were by living Americans who were relatively well established, and considered modern, that is, vaguely Impressionist, but not avant-garde. Neither American nor European Modernist works were exhibited. It was from these exhibitions that purchases were made, not only by the association but by private individuals as well. The association’s first purchase was Woodland Brook, a painting by Edward Redfield, acquired in 1917. From that time until 1930 the association purchased twenty-two more oils, the most notable being Christ Walking on the Water by Henry Ossawa Tanner, acquired in 1921, and Ballet Girl in White by Robert Henri, acquired in 1927. All these works, along with a few drawings and prints and one sculpture, were eventually given to the Des Moines Art Center.

A number of purchases made by association members also eventually went into the Art Center’s collection; for example, the very fine The Hour of Tea by Frederick Carl Frieseke, which was among eighteen paintings given by Florence Carpenter in 1941 in memory of her recently deceased husband, and A Path at Ste. Brelade by Theodore Van Rysselberghe, a 1964 bequest of William and Edith King Pearson. The prize of the Carpenter collection was George Bellows’s Aunt Fanny, which was purchased from Mrs. Carpenter with Edmundson funds in 1942. Sanny Carpenter bought this painting in 1920 directly from the artist while the paint was still wet on the canvas.

Only six paintings acquired by the Fine Arts Association have stood the test of time and remain in the Art Center’s permanent collection. With the exception of one painting that was sold in 1951, the remaining sixteen were sold at auction in 1990. Eight of the artists whose paintings were sold are still represented in the collection by works considered superior in quality.

Activities of the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts came to a halt with the onset of the Depression in the early 1930s, but in 1938 a group of members wishing to keep the association alive until the museum became a reality, launched a successful membership drive. The second floor of an old two-story building (reached by an outside stairway) at 610 1/2 Walnut Street was rented. Galleries and studios were constructed with labor donated by the painters’ and carpenters’ unions and materials furnished by local businesses. Paul Harris was hired as the association’s first professional director. One of the exhibitions presented during Harris’ tenure included ten winning designs in a competition for a new Smithsonian Art Gallery in Washington, DC, included the entry of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, The exhibition served to introduce the work of this father-son team to Des Moines.

In March 1941 the WPA took over management of the gallery in cooperation with the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts. It was renamed the Des Moines Art Center and its programs were greatly expanded. Art instruction for both children and adults became, for the first time, an important part of the gallery’s activities–as reflected in its new name. WPA sponsorship lasted until sometime in 1943. The Des Moines Association of Fine Arts continued to operate the Walnut Street quarters until 1945, when it voluntarily dissolved and turned over its assets to the Edmundson Art Foundation, which had been established under the will of James D. Edmundson who died in 1933.