Eiteljorg Museum

Mission:
The mission of the Eiteljorg Museum is to inspire an appreciation and understanding of the art, history and cultures of the American West and the indigenous peoples of North America. The Eiteljorg Museum collects and preserves Western art and Native American art and cultural objects of the highest quality, and serves the public through engaging exhibitions, educational programs, cultural exchanges and entertaining special events.

About the Museum:
The Eiteljorg Museum is the only museum of its kind in the Midwest, and one of only two museums east of the Mississippi that showcase both Native American and Western art, culture and history.

The museum contains one of the best Native American and Western art collections in the world, including traditional and contemporary work by artists such as T.C. Cannon, N. C. Wyeth, Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, Allan Houser, Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and Kay WalkingStick.

The museum’s Mihtohseenionki (The People's Place) gallery explores Indiana’s indigenous peoples—the Delaware, Miami and Potawatomi Indians—through preserved rare objects, historical photos, interactive displays and audiovisual technology. Other galleries feature Native American art and artifacts from coast to coast, including pottery, basketry, woodcarvings, beadwork and apparel. The museum’s alliance partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) gives it invaluable access to the NMAI’s traveling exhibitions and collections.

The Nina Mason Pulliam Education Center offers guests of all ages the opportunity to explore Western and Native American culture through demonstrations, workshops and other hands-on activities. The Education Center houses two art studios, as well as the Stephen and Sharon Zimmerman Resource Center that makes the museum’s 5,000-volume collection available to the public. The Center’s resources, including books, DVDs, videos and more, can be accessed through the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library’s online database. Use of the museum’s Resource Center is free of charge.

The museum’s Sky City Café, a 90-seat casual dining restaurant, serves dishes inspired by Western and Native American culture. The museum also features the DeHaan Family Terrace, beautiful garden space long the downtown Indianapolis Central Canal.

Located in Indianapolis’ White River State Park, the Eiteljorg Museum is within walking distance of the RCA Dome, Circle Centre Mall and several major downtown hotels.

History:
The museum opened in 1989 with funding assistance from Lilly Endowment Inc. Since that time, the Eiteljorg Museum has served as the primary venue for Native American art and culture in Indiana. It is also the only museum in the Midwest to offer extensive collections of both Native American and American Western art. This natural, yet surprising, combination of artistic forms grew out of the unique vision of Harrison Eiteljorg, the museum's founder. An Indianapolis businessman, philanthropist and art collector, Eiteljorg wanted the museum to capture the unusual aesthetic of the West - in all its diversity - in this community just east of the West. The West was, and perhaps in some ways still is, a frontier, one that moved from New England across the country with European settlement. The Midwest, after all, was once the West, and Indiana and Indianapolis were named after their first human inhabitants.