History
The Canton Museum of Art traces its roots to the Little Civic Art Gallery founded in the Canton Public Library in 1935. A year later, the organization became known as the Canton Art Institute and an active program of exhibits and educational programs flourished throughout the late 1930s. In its early days (1935–1945), the museum served largely as an exhibition and meeting place for local artists; at the time, collecting was not a prime objective. In 1941, a Richardsonian building known as the Case Mansion was donated and renovated to become the home of the Institute. During the next thirty years, CAI became a focal point for the arts in Canton, supporting affiliate organizations such as Canton Fine Arts Associates. It provided a home for the offices of the Canton Symphony and facilities for the Madrigal Singers, Canton Chamber Music Society and the Players’ Guild.
When the Cultural Center for the Arts was established in 1970, all of the arts in Canton were centralized. The Institute began a program of expanded exhibits and art classes. Educational initiatives, such as the Humanities program with the Canton City Schools, were begun and new affiliate organizations, including the Museum Guild, the Players’ Guild Theatre, and the Potter's Guild were founded.
During the 1980s, the Board of Trustees and CMA Staff began to clarify the goals and direction of the Museum. In 1989, a unique focus for the Permanent Collection was approved by the CMC and Board of Trustees: 19th and 20th Century American works on paper and American ceramics, 1950s and forward.
The 1980s CAI shows include a Goya exhibit, two successful exhibitions of Ohio’s quilts and a commemoration of the Statue of Liberty’s centennial. In the 1990s, the museum presented a broad variety of exhibits, including innovative projects such as Ubuntu Roi and The Power of If involving students, teachers and area artists. A CMA original exhibit, "Ultra-Realistic Sculpture by Mark Sijan", that was presented in 1992, went on an extended national tour. The museum's educational efforts included Outreach programs and Art Experience Days.
CMA celebrated its 60th anniversary in 1995 and assumed a new identity as The Canton Museum of Art. In 1997-98, the Museum presented "Norman Rockwell’s America," the most successful exhibit in the Museum’s history and hosted a touring exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "The Nazi Olympics—Berlin 1936." In 2004, the Museum presented the prestigious "Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures" exhibit to over 12,000 patrons in six weeks.
Museum overview
CMA offers 12 to 15 exhibitions throughout the year. In this rotation, the main exhibition is often accompanied by two smaller exhibitions of regional artists and a presentation of works from the permanent collection developed around a theme. Permanent Collection exhibitions might contain works by significant American, European and regional artists.
Once a year gallery space is devoted to art by high school students in Canton and Stark County. The high school shows are juried and financial scholarships are awarded for both college and CMA art classes.
Affiliate groups have two fund-raisers annually that are intended as social events for the community. The “Antiques in Canton” Show & Sale has a nationally known guest curator, and “Christkindl Market” is a juried arts and craft show bringing over 100 craftsmen from around the country.
The Museum’s Education Department provides the public with studio art classes and workshops. Educational Outreach programs take the museum off-site to libraries, parochial schools, area public schools, five inner-city schools and a special school for students with behavioral disorders. Docent-led school tours are available for current exhibitions and art experience days allow students to participate in hands-on projects.
For over 20 years, the Canton City school district has offered special Humanities courses to its students at the Museum. And Kent State University, Stark Campus schedules its ceramic classes in the museum's Pot Shop. The CMA is a regular meeting place for a number of community and civic organizations such as the Rotary, the Canton Garden Club, and Prime Time, a seniors group affiliated with a local hospital.
Permanent collection
The Canton Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection
Foescon is 19th, 20th and 21st-century American works on paper and contemporary ceramics, 1950s and forward. Major categories are American drawings; American watercolors; American prints and American ceramics. This focus is unique among museums in northeast Ohio – an area that included muse such me as the Akron Art Museum, The Butler Institute of American Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The collection focus was enhanced through the gift of a collection of watercolors and drawings from Ralph L. Wilson in the 1970s. Included in his gift were works by Burchfield, Demuth, Feininger, Henri, Keller, Marin, Maurer, Prendergast, Shinn and Sommer. Augmenting the watercolor collection are the purchased works of Thomas Hart Benton, Oscar Bluemner, Carolyn Brady, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Luks, Jan Multaka, Joseph Raffael, John Singer Sargent and Andrew Wyeth. The print collection contains work by Romare Bearden, Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Nimmo Moran, Philip Pearlstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers and Andy Warhol.
Contemporary ceramics 1950s and forward is a unique yet traditional focus for the Museum. Ohio’s history of ceramics includes the decorative pottery work of Roseville, Rookwood, Weller and McCoy and the Museum’s focus extends this interest in pottery with contemporary works. The collection contains works by Jack Earl, Maija Grotell, Marilyn Levine, Toshiko Takaezu and Patti Warashina among others. In the past three years, the collection has been expanded through gifts and purchases with works by Ken Ferguson, Karen Karnes, Don Pilcher, Don Reitz and Victor Spinski.
Since 1992, the Museum has purchased watercolors by Thomas Hart Benton, Oscar Bluemner, Carolyn Brady, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Luks, Jan Multaka, Joseph Raffael and John Singer Sargent. The ceramic collection was supplemented with purchases of works by Brother Thomas Bezanson, Ken Ferguson, Karen Karnes, Roberta Laidman and Victor Spinski. In addition, the Museum accepted gifts of works by Don Pilcher and Don Reitz.
The permanent collection serves as the foundation for the Museum’s exhibition programs. It is used in ongoing exhibits of the Permanent Collection (mindful of the special rotation requirements of watercolors and works on paper), and as the core of special exhibits created with loans from other institutions.
Frank Weston Benson, frequently referred to as Frank W. Benson, was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts, known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolors and etchings. He began his career painting portraits of distinguished families and murals for the Library of Congress. Some of his best known paintings depict his daughters outdoors at Benson's summer home, Wooster Farm, on the island of North Haven, Maine. He also produced numerous oil, wash and watercolor paintings and etchings of wildfowl and landscapes.
The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery (CCGG) is a public art gallery located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is the only Canadian art gallery exclusively dedicated to exhibiting and collecting contemporary Canadian ceramic, glass, enamel and stained glass works of art. It has approximately 20,000 annual visitors.
Joseph Raffael was an American contemporary realist painter. His paintings, primarily watercolors, are almost all presented on a very large scale.
The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art is an art museum at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. It is in the UF Cultural Plaza area in the southwest part of campus.
The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair in Essex County, New Jersey and holds a collection of over 12,000 objects showcasing American and Native North American art. Through its public programs, art classes, and exhibitions, MAM strives to create experiences that inspire, challenge, and foster community to shape our shared future.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in 2020, it is the 12th largest art museum in the world based on square feet of gallery space. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 70,000 works from six continents. In 2023, the museum received over 900,000 visitors, making it the 20th most-visited museum in the United States.
Walter Emerson Baum was an American artist and educator active in the Bucks and Lehigh County areas of Pennsylvania in the United States. In addition to being a prolific painter, Baum was also responsible for the founding of the Baum School of Art and the Allentown Art Museum.
The Sioux City Art Center began as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project in 1937 when the Art Center Association of Sioux City, the Sioux City Junior League, as well as other community supporters, received a grant of $3,000 to create the first art center. After the Federal Assistance Program ended in 1940, the Sioux City City Council voted to fund the Art Center and established the Board of Trustees, the City's fiscal governing board for the Art Center in 1941. It is located in Sioux City, Iowa.
The Huntington Museum of Art is a nationally accredited art museum located in the Park Hills neighborhood above Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia. Housed on over 50 acres of land and occupying almost 60,000 square feet, it is the largest art museum in the state of West Virginia. The museum's campus is home to nature trails and the C. Fred Edwards Conservatory, a subtropical and tropical plant conservatory. The museum's collection includes American and European paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings, as well as glass pieces manufactured in West Virginia and the Ohio Valley, American folk art, Chinese and Japanese decorative objects, Haitian art, firearms, and decorative arts from the Near East. In addition to its permanent collections, the museum hosts traveling exhibitions and houses the James D. Francis Art Research Library, the Grace Rardin Doherty Auditorium, and five art studios where artists in residence are periodically hosted and classes are held. The Huntington Museum of Art holds one of the largest collections of art in the state of West Virginia.
The New Orleans Museum of Art is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line. It was established in 1911 as the Delgado Museum of Art.
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the United States, and has seven curatorial departments.
The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art is a ceramics museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is situated within University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The 4,299.2-square-metre (46,276 sq ft) museum building was designed by Keith Wagland, with further expansions and renovations done by KPMB Architects.
Founded by artists, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was established in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton. The organization has grown to encompass an Art School, Guild, Store, and Museum with permanent collections of contemporary art, photography, non-western art, glass, and sculpture, as well as a diverse selection of special exhibitions. The museum is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park.
The Racine Art Museum (RAM) and RAM's Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts are located in Racine, Wisconsin, U.S. The museum holds the largest and most significant contemporary craft collection in North America, with more than 9,500 objects from nationally and internationally recognized artists. The Racine Art Museum's mission is to exhibit, collect, preserve, and educate in the contemporary visual arts. Its goal is to elevate the stature of craft to fine arts by presenting contemporary crafts alongside paintings and sculptures.
Art Museum of the Americas (AMA), located in Washington, D.C., is the first art museum in the United States primarily devoted to exhibiting works of modern and contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean. The museum was formally established in 1976 by the Organization of American States (OAS) as the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America. Artists represented in the AMA's permanent collection include Carlos Cruz-Diez, Candido Portinari, Pedro Figari, Fernando de Szyszlo, Amelia Peláez, and Alejandro Obregón.
The Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA) is an art museum located in Greenville, South Carolina. Its collections focus mainly on American art, and its holdings include works by Andrew Wyeth,Jasper Johns, William Henry Johnson, Andy Warhol, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Alma Thomas, Helen Turner, Charles Wilson Peale, Eric Fischl, Marylyn Dintenfass, and Leonardo Drew. Southern American and South Carolina-based artists, such as Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, are also represented.
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) is an accredited academic art museum focused on modern and contemporary art at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. NEHMA was founded in 1982 with the ceramic collection of philanthropist and namesake Nora Eccles Harrison. The museum has since expanded to include over 5,500 objects focused on modernist and contemporary works created in the western region of the United States. The core of the collection explores certain key art historical movements including Beat, Los Angeles Post-Surrealism, Santa Fe Transcendentalism, and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism. The museum also collects and exhibits contemporary works that function as glimpses of the thriving art scenes found in many cities in the Western United States. Additionally, the museum serves as the recipient of the Vogel Collection for the state of Utah.
The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, modern and contemporary ceramics, as well as the largest public collection of works by acclaimed Idaho outsider artist and bookmaker James Charles Castle. The museum also features major traveling exhibitions and installations throughout the year.
Jack Earl is an American ceramic artist and former teacher, known for drawing inspiration from his home state of Ohio to create rural pieces “with meticulous craftsmanship and astute details… to where you could smell the air, hear the silence and swat the flies.” Although his works hint at highly personal, intellectual, and narrative themes in an almost unsettling manner, Earl is “a self-described anti-intellectual who shuns the art world." He is known particularly for using his trademark format, the dos-a-dos : “This art form is like a book with two stories… the two seemingly incongruent images prompt the viewer to fill in the conceptual gap through poetic speculation.” His work often involves dogs or the character “Bill”, who is said to be a combination of Earl’s father-in-law, himself, and others. The titles to his pieces are typically lengthy, stream-of-consciousness narratives that suggest the folk or rural lifestyle. These are intended to add another dimension to the artwork. His work has received a notable response over his decades-long career, especially since he is regarded as “a master at reminding us that within the events we take for granted are moments of never-ending mystery and wonder.” Earl continues to live in Lakeview, Ohio with his wife, Fairlie.
The Art Center of Western Colorado, formerly known as The Western Colorado Center for the Arts, is located at 1803 North Seventh Street in Grand Junction, Colorado. Founded in 1953, the art center has a permanent collection comprising mainly regional Western art. Its facilities also include four galleries, a gift shop, two enclosed courtyards, as well as several studios and classrooms.
