MUSEUM 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.

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Edmundson’s Bequest

James D. Edmundson’s will provided $300,000 for the erection of a museum building; $200,000 for an endowment fund; and $100,000 for the purchase of works of art for exhibition, free of charge for admission, for at least three days in each week, including Sunday, and all legal holidays. Edmundson also left the remainder of his estate, after payment of certain other bequests, for unrestricted museum purposes. Because his estate contained more than 8,500 acres of farm land which was depressed in value, Edmundson provided that no museum funds could be distributed for at least ten years after his death. This waiting period, followed by a delay in construction caused by World War II, meant that the Art Center was not completed until June 1948. After payment of construction costs, the Edmundson bequest to the Art Center amounted to more than $1.5 million.

Edmundson, a reclusive lawyer, real-estate investor, and scholar, was born in a log cabin near Burlington in 1838 when Iowa was still a territory. He lived in Council Bluffs for many years before moving to Des Moines at the turn of the century. His will named thirty-five men, any nine of whom were empowered to form a corporation bearing his name, to receive and administer the museum funds. This corporation was organized in 1935 under the name of the Edmundson Memorial Foundation with Jay N. Darling, noted conservationist and cartoonist, as president. The corporation currently operates under the name of the Edmundson Art Foundation, Inc., with a self-perpetuating, rotating board of twenty-five members. Former board members serve as honorary members with no power to determine Art Center policy.

The Edmundson will stipulated that the museum could not be built east of West Fourteenth Street unless the smoke nuisance in Des Moines, caused by heating with soft coal, had sufficiently abated so that there was no danger of injury from this source to the building or its contents. This provision caused the Edmundson trustees to abandon plans to build on property on East First Street which had been acquired by the city as a museum site. In 1940, at the request of the trustees, the city designated land in Greenwood Park for the building. John Woolson Brooks, a Des Moines architect, was asked to draw preliminary plans. Four years later, after lively and often heated discussion about the style of architecture for the new museum, the trustees hired Eliel Saarinen, the noted Finnish architect, to design the structure.

In planning the museum, the trustees wisely decided to make it more than an institution for preserving and showing works of art. In addition to exhibition galleries, the building featured an auditorium for lectures and the performing arts, a library, and a meeting room with kitchen facilities for use by community groups. The Saarinen plans also provided for a two-story education wing with studios for printmaking, painting, ceramics, and other arts.

In 1945, Paul Parker, an artist who was director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, was hired as director of the Des Moines Art Center. His job was to help with developing plans for the museum, establishing policies, and preparing for the opening of the new building. In 1946, the trustees created the Des Moines Art Center Association, a subsidiary board which was to be responsible for membership recruitment and for operation of the museum. This board, headed by Florence Cowles Kruidenier, was composed of former board members of the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts. The Edmundson trustees, however, retained control of finances, the selection of personnel, and the acquisition of works of art.

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Early Controversies

The Art Center opened in Greenwood Park in June 1948 with a large exhibition of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American art, with a special section devoted to the work of Iowa artists. However, management problems quickly overshadowed this high-quality show. The Art Center Association felt it lacked sufficient authority to function satisfactorily and, as a consequence, asked that it be amalgamated with the Edmundson board. The Edmundson trustees, fearing that the operating board was too sympathetic to modern art for their generally conservative taste, and reluctant to have women as fellow board members, rejected the proposal. The problem of a single board was solved when all the members of the operating board resigned, thus forcing the trustees to assume responsibility for the center’s operation. The trustees soon found that they needed female volunteers to help run the membership campaign, and in 1950 the first women were added to their board.

Concurrent with the 1948 controversy over the two-board setup was a serious disagreement between Paul Parker and the Edmundson trustees over the director’s authority relating to acquisitions of works. While museums generally acquire works of art only on the recommendation of their directors, the Edmundson trustees, distrustful of Parker’s taste for modern art, refused to follow this procedure. When they accepted a gift of a painting without consulting him, Parker resigned. He also cited the two-board structure as an unworkable situation. Since Parker’s departure, the Edmundson trustees have followed accepted museum practice for acquisitions: the director presents proposed gifts or purchases to an acquisitions committee for consideration and then reports the committee’s recommendations to the board for final action.

Funds for the purchase of art were available from two sources: the Edmundson bequest of $100,000 for art acquisitions, and the bequest of Winnie Ewing Coffin who died in 1937. Coffin’s will provided that the major part of her estate be put into a trust, the income from which was to be used for the purchase of works of art in memory of her husband, Nathan Emory Coffin. Her will explicitly stated that no part of the bequest be applied toward operating costs. The Coffin bequest amounted to $750,000 and has increased substantially since that time.

Now, with its proud history distinguished by enlightened and adventuresome building and acquisition policies, the Des Moines Art Center is continues to be an important asset to the community.

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