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 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.
Located in scenic Eden Park, the Cincinnati Art Museum features an unparalleled art collection of more than 60,000 works spanning 6,000 years. In addition to displaying its own broad collection, the Art Museum also hosts several national and international traveling exhibitions each year.
Visitors can enjoy the exhibitions or participate in the Art Museum’s wide range of art-related programs, activities and special events. General admission is always free for all, plus Art Museum members receive additional benefits.
The Art Museum is open six days a week, making greater Cincinnati’s most treasured cultural asset accessible to everyone.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of individuals and businesses that give annually to the Fine Arts Fund. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund the Cincinnati Art Museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. The Cincinnati Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from The Carol Anne and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. US Bank Foundation and the City of Cincinnati, as well as our members. The Official Airline of the Cincinnati Art Museum is Delta.
History
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. Just five years later, in May 1886, a permanent art museum building was completed in Eden Park and was heralded worldwide as “The Art Palace of the West.”
The Cincinnati Art Museum enjoyed the support of the community from the beginning. Generous donations from a number of prominent Cincinnatians grew the collection to number in the tens of thousands of objects, which soon necessitated the addition of the first of several Art Museum expansions.
In 1907 the Schmidlapp Wing opened, which was followed by a series of building projects. The addition of the Emery (named after Cincinnati philanthropists Thomas J. Emery and his wife Mary Emery), Hanna and French wings in the 1930s enclosed the courtyard and gave the Art Museum its current rectangular shape and provided the space in which our American, European and Asian collections are currently shown.
Renovations during the late 1940s and early 1950s divided the Great Hall into two floors and the present main entrance to the Art Museum was established. The 1965 completion of the Adams-Emery wing increased our facility resources yet further, adding space for the permanent collection, lecture halls and temporary exhibition galleries.
In 1993, a $13 million project restored the grandeur of the Art Museum’s interior architecture and uncovered long-hidden architectural details. This project included the renovation of one of the Art Museum’s signature spaces, the Great Hall. In addition, new gallery space was created and lighting and climate control were improved. The Art Museum’s temporary exhibition space was expanded to approximately 10,000 square feet (930 m2) to accommodate major temporary exhibitions.
By the turn of the twenty-first century, the Art Museum’s collection numbered over 60,000 objects and, today, is the largest in the state of Ohio. In 2003, the Cincinnati Art Museum deepened its ties with the Greater Cincinnati community by opening the popular and expansive Cincinnati Wing, the first permanent display of a city’s art history in the nation. In addition, on May 17, 2003, the Art Museum eliminated its general admission fee forever, made possible by The Lois and Richard Rosenthal Foundation.
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