We continue our tour of
Eden Park by taking the road going to the right at the main entrance and go up
the hill to the Cincinnati Art Museum. So far I have been calling the two
buildings the art museum for brevity but in reality in almost all the cards you
have seen so far, and most of the cards below, the second smaller building was
the Art Academy of Cincinnati. The art academy was started in 1869 when the
McMicken School of Art and Design opened in a rented building at 3rd and Main
Streets. Charles McMicken was a merchant and real estate speculator who
left around $1,000,000 to the city for the establishment of a institution of
higher learning. The school moved to better quarters in the Cincinnati College
at 4th and Walnut Streets. Many felt a combined academy and museum would better
serve both artists and the city. In 1881 Joseph Longworth (1813-1883) offered an
endowment of $370,000 for the school if it would transfer control to the Art
Museum Association, of which he had just become president. Ruben Springer
(1800-1884) and David Sinton (1808-1900) paid for the new building. Opening in
1887, 410 students paid $10 annual tuition.
The Art Academy building itself was built a year after the
completion of the Art Museum and was designed to compliment it. In the 1950s it
was updated. The top two floors, roof and half dome were removed. In 2005 the
Academy moved from here to a new campus in Over-The Rhine at Twelfth and Jackson
Streets. Proposals are underway for the construction of a "signature"
addition, with underground parking.
The original Art Museum building you see in the cards below was constructed in 1886 and was dedicated on May 17, 1886. The image below shows the Museum on that day.
In the aerial views below you can see the many additions that have been added to these two buildings. These additions include the Schmidlapp Wing in 1907 (1); the Ropes addition in 1909 (2), the Hanna Wing (3), the French Wing (4) and the Emery Wing (5) all in 1930, the Alms Wing (6) in 1937, and in 1965 the Adams-Emery Wing (7). Everything has been linked together including the Art Academy.
Three bird's-eye views
Bet you thought you had seen
the last of the Elsinore Tower.
Ten cards showing the Schmidlapp Wing predominately
These cards show the interior quite nicely.
These sculptures were located in part of the Schmidlapp wing. Today this space houses the museum's collection of Egyptian, Greek Etruscan, and Roman art.
View From Entrance
Hall
Upper Gallery, Emery Wing
In 1877 a group of local women, who had held a very successful display of their china and other works at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, founded the Women's Art Museum Association. In 1880 Charles West (1810-1884) offered $150,000 for the construction of a Museum if other leading Cincinnatians would match the sum. Within a month Julius Dexter, J. A. Frazier, Joseph Longworth, David Sinton, and Reuben Springer all met his challenge. In 1882 20 acres were set aside for the museum by the city in Eden Park. Completed in 1885 it was dedicated the following year.
To see some of the Art Museums many and varied collections go to the Collection link at the top of the page.
Before it was moved to Union Terminal The Cincinnati Historical Society was housed in this building next to The Art Museum. Begun in 1831 The Society is the oldest in Ohio and the eighth oldest in the nation
As you can see there was at one time a Spanish-American War Cannon located not too far from the art museum. The bronze cannon was a trophy of the Battle of Santiago (Cuba), July 3, 1898. Weighing 23,300 lbs. it had been mounted on the Spanish warship Almirante Oquendo. It was donated to one of the scrap drives during WWII. Kraemer collectors will appreciate the last five cards. The 1st card is what the original looked like.
This is a rare look at the cannon from the south entrance to Eden Park (from Mt. Adams).
The first card is another bandstand that is located between the museum and the reservoir. Built in 1915 this is where the main summer concerts were held. The last three cards are just some more winter scenes to give us a chilly send off.
