The Indianapolis Museum of Art

Written by Julie Greiner

The mission of the Indianapolis Museum of Art is to enable a large and diverse audience to see, understand and enjoy the best of the world's visual arts; to this end, the Museum collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets original works of art. The Indianapolis Museum Of Art can accommodate a meeting, company picnic, wedding reception, dinner for honored guests or a glittering soiree for 1,000 or more. Spacious buildings, grounds and gardens allow you to be inside or outdoors. For more information about facilities rental e-mail the event services coordinator or call 317.923.1331.

Mission of Museum

Oldfields, the 26-acre estate located on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum Of Art, is a rare surviving example in the Midwest of an American Country Place - an important period in U.S. landscape history. The estate's house, gardens and grounds were Indianapolis Museum of Art Oldfields

laid out in the 1910s and 1920s at a time when wealthy families were leaving the city to build expansive country estates. The mansion, which overlooks the White River valley, was built for Hugh McKennan Landon and his family between 1912 and 1914. In the 1930s, Oldfields was acquired by Josiah K. Lilly Jr. In the early 1920s the Landons hired Percival Gallagher of the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a Ravine Garden. Considered a masterwork of garden design, Gallagher's one-acre Ravine Garden features a bubbling brook that descends the 50-foot hillside and feeds three-rock-rimmed pools. The garden is home to tens of thousands of flowers and plants, including bulbs, perennials, wildflowers, ferns, and flowering trees and shrubs. Gallagher went on to lay out the entire grounds of the Oldfields estate, including Border Gardens, a formal Indianapolis Museum of Art Building

Allee, redesign of an existing Formal Garden, Greenhouse, vegetable gardens and more.

Oldfields Mansion

The large garden at the west of the Oldfields property, located between the mansion and the canal, comprises the newly restored Ravine Garden. Designed by Percival Gallagher of Olmsted Brothers in the 1920s, the Ravine Garden recently has been fully restored. It reopened in May 1999 and was officially dedicated as the Rapp Family Ravine Garden in honor of major donors George and Peggy Rapp and their families. A host of other generous donors also contributed to the restoration. The African art collection, which numbers more than 1,400 objects, is among the more important collections of African art in the nation, representing all major art-producing regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the collection, some 1,200 works, were given to the IMA in 1989 by Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Eiteljorg of Indianapolis. The collection is permanently displayed in the Eiteljorg Gallery of African Art, located on the second floor of Hulman Pavilion. The strength of the collection is in West African art, with holdings from the Yoruba people and the Benin Kingdom of Nigeria. Included are ritual masks and figures, crowns and other Indianapolis Museum of Art Ravine Garden

Indianapolis Museum of Art Ravine Garden

accoutrements of leadership, as well as clothing, stools and other utilitarian objects. Most of the collection dates from within the last 100 years, although some objects date from the 16th-century.

Oldfields Gardens

Since 1972, the Clowes Collection has formed the basis of the IMA's presentation of European art prior to 1800. Masterworks in the collection have been enjoyed by visitors from around the world, and several generations of Indiana schoolchildren have been introduced to works of the Old Masters in the intimate setting of Clowes Pavilion. Gifts to the Tsars, 1500-1700 Treasures from the Kremlin features more than 100 masterpieces of gold and silver objects, precious gems, parade arms and armor, exquisite textiles and ceremonial horse trappings that were gifts from the most powerful rulers of the day to Russian tsars from the time of Ivan the Terrible through Peter the Great. The exhibition brings many of these remarkable objects to the United States for the first time.

Gifts to the Tsars and Old World Masterworks

Shown exclusively at the Indianapolis Museum Of Art, the dazzling art works in Gifts to the Tsars tell the story of Russia's transformation into one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. As Russia took its place among the mightiest nations of the 16th and 17th centuries, increasingly extravagant gifts were presented to tsars by the leaders of Turkey, Persia and western Europe to win the favor of these absolute rulers. Gifts to the Tsars is organized by the IMA in collaboration with The State Historical-Cultural Museum Preserve, Moscow Kremlin. The museum is located at 1200 West 38th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46208-4196 and the 24-Hour General Museum Information Line is: 317.920.2660.