Member Spotlight

Columbus Museum of Art

                                                                                                

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About the Columbus Museum of Art

 

The Columbus Museum of Art creates great experiences with great art for everyone. Hear an artist talk about creating art, see a masterpiece by Claude Monet, engage in hands-on art activities, or savor a moment to reflect, connect, and remember. Whether we are presenting an exhibition, designing an art-making activity, serving a lunch, or giving directions to a visitor, we are guided by a belief in advocacy, quality, community, integrity, and creativity. We believe that art speaks to each and every one of us in different ways. Art inspires. Art challenges. Art thinks. Art begins a conversation within ourselves and our community. The Columbus Museum of Art is where that conversation begins.

 

CMA houses art that speaks to diverse interests and styles. Approximately 200,000 people tour the Museum each year, many participating in programs designed for diverse audiences from school children to scholars. We have an outstanding collection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century American and European modern art. Our collection includes spectacular examples of Impressionism, German Expressionism, Cubism, folk art, contemporary art, glass, and photography. We also house extraordinary collections by Columbus natives George Bellows, Elijah Pierce, and Aminah Robinson. Our dynamic Center for Creativity fosters imagination, critical thinking, and innovation through experiences that engage visitors with art and with each other, model the creative process, highlight examples of creativity in action, and underscore the importance of creativity in our community.

 

What's Noteworthy: 

  • CMA was the first art museum in Ohio to offer guide-by-cell tours

 

  • Recent renovations at CMA include more than just our building. We've designed even more ways for you to connect with art and with each other. In the galleries, a variety of hands-on activities for people of all ages offer different approaches to exploring art and stimulating new ideas. There are board games, puzzles, design activities, and Join the Conversation stations to share your thoughts. There are also new gathering areas in the galleries to encourage you to relax and to start a conversation. All these enhancements allow visitors to create their own great experience with great art.  

 

  • Here's what people are saying about the new CMA: "The puzzles at the tables in some of the galleries were a pleasant surprise. My first thought was, 'We're here to look at art, why would we stop to do a puzzle?' But, we did the puzzle and ended up having a great time!  Not only that, when we completed the puzzle I looked up and THERE WAS THE PIECE OF ART we had just put together in the puzzle.  It gave me the chills - in a wonderful way. What an amazing way to connect people with art!"

 

  • CMA is the only U.S. venue for the upcoming exhibition Caravaggio: Behold the Man! The Impact of a Revolutionary Realism. CMA offers the rare opportunity to view the work of Italian Baroque master beginning October 21, 2011 when Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), painted by Caravaggio around 1605, and lent by the Musei di Strada Nuova - Palazzo Bianco, Genoa will be on view. Caravaggio is remembered as much for his unconventional lifestyle as his immeasurable talent. His  revolutionary art along with a life of personal excess, punctuated by late night brawls, attempts on his life,  and multiple arrests, culminated with a Papal death warrant that forced him to live as an exile. Tragically, he died while making his way to Rome after receiving news of having received a pardon. Although his life ended abruptly at the age of 38, his powerful realism impacted a generation or more of European artists.  

 

Interesting facts you may not know

 

  • CMA was the first museum chartered in the state of Ohio
  • CMA houses the largest public collection of works by Columbus artists George Bellows and Elijah Piece
  • George Bellows is widely considered the greatest American artist of his generation
  • 2010 recipient of the Expy Award from Experience Columbus for Egypt in Columbus collaboration with COSI and Columbus Metropolitan Library and suburban library branches
  • Each year, every Columbus City Schools grade five student receives a free museum experience

 

*Photography by Greg Miller