Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The main entrance
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Location	30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, Colorado
Coordinates	38°50′45″N104°49′32″W / 38.84583°N 104.82556°W / 38.84583; -104.82556 Coordinates: 38°50′45″N104°49′32″W / 38.84583°N 104.82556°W / 38.84583; -104.82556
Area	1.6 acres (0.65 ha)
Built	1936
Architect	Meem, John Gaw; Rogers, Platt
Architectural style	Art Deco
Website	fac.coloradocollege.edu
NRHP reference No.	86001455 [1]
Added to NRHP	July 03, 1986

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC) is an arts center located just north of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. Located on the same city block are the American Numismatic Association and part of the campus of Colorado College.

The center uses a thick red outline of a square as its logo.

History

With $600,000, Alice Bemis Taylor funded the 1936 construction of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and provided a $400,000 donation for an endowment. Constructed during the Great Depression, Taylor saw the project as a means of employment for unemployed laborers. Taylor donated her extensive Indian and Hispanic art and her collection of 6,000 volumes of Americana. She envisioned a place that would be accessible to all people, with no admission charge. ^{[2] [3]} The Broadmoor Art Academy previously stood on the grounds of the current art center, on land donated by Julie Penrose. ^[4] Elizabeth Sage Hare also collaborated with Taylor and Penrose on the center, the nation's first combined art museum, art school and performing arts venue. ^[5]

The Fine Arts Center was designed by New Mexico architect John Gaw Meem in a revolutionary design combining modernism and indigenous Pueblo style architecture Pueblo Revival Style and Spanish Colonial into "Santa Fe Style" architecture. In 1940, Meem's most modern design earned a Silver Medal at the Fifth Quadrennial Pan American Congress of Architecture. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ^[5]

At the original Grand Opening in April 1936, Martha Graham performed Lamentation-Dance of Sorrow ; ^[6] Frank Lloyd Wright lectured about the building, Manuel de Falla performed an opera with life-size marionettes, and Alexander Calder created the stage design for a sung dialog, Eric Satie's "Socrate." ^[7] Among the art school's instructors were Boardman Robinson, Adolf Dehn, and Jean Charlot. ^[8]

On July 1, 2017, the center become the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. ^[9]

Description

The Fine Arts Center is a modern poured concrete Pueblo-inspired structure that integrates Southwestern, Art Deco and Classic architectural elements. It has one, two and, for the theatre fly tower, four stories. Within the building are galleries, art studios, performing art facilities including a 400-seat theater, a music room, retail shop and storage and office space. The murals on the exterior of the building were produced by Boardman Robinson and Frank Mechau. ^[5] The auditorium includes three aluminum relief panels over the doors depicting Pueblo and Hopi Indian Kachina masks, all by noted Denver sculptor, Arnold Rönnebeck, murals in the original theater lounge (now restaurant) by Andrew Dasburg, Kenneth Adams, and Ward Lockwood, and a downstairs lounge mural by Archie Musick. ^[10]

For the National Register of Historic Places, it was described as follows:

Its monolithic pueblo massing, its undisguised modern use of concrete, aluminum and glass; its southwestern details, its Native American designs abstracted into Art Deco ornamentation; its streamlined elegance; and its classical proportions - all result in a timeless character - with fundamental roots to the region and the time as well as manifesting an innovative architectural reflection of the building's underlying function, which is to preserve culture and to honor the contemporary. ^[5]

It borders Monument Valley Park and has a view of Pikes Peak. It is near the city's business district, in a combined residential and office building zone, in the Colorado College campus. Its well-preserved state, reflects the initial building construction with maintenance and restoration. ^[5]

Arts center

The multi-purpose center includes:

• Art Museum - Several galleries, where the permanent collection of Southwest art is displayed, in addition to other permanent works as well as an annual calendar of curated and traveling shows. ^[11]
• The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company produces comedies, dramas and musicals. It also hosts music and dance events and film festivals. ^{[12] [13]}
• Bemis School of Art offers art education to the local community, with classes for adults and children. Four times a year it holds free "Family Adventure Days". ^{[12] [14]}
• A retail shop and lounge ^[11]

Admission is free to members, students and teachers. ^{[13] [15]}

Notable pieces and exhibits

Mural on exterior of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

• Dale Chihuly chandeliers. ^[11]
• One of the country's "strongest collections" of Native American, Latin American and Hispanic American art. ^[13]
• Notable artists within the FAC permanent collection include: John Singer Sargent, Georgia O'Keeffe, Richard Diebenkorn, Walt Kuhn, ^{[16] [13]} and Ansel Adams. ^[16]

Theater

The center was constructed with a performing arts theater. ^[9] In 2006, the center was expanded by more than 48,000 square feet. A new wing was constructed adjacent to the Center's Bemis School of Art to add studio space for classrooms and rehearsal spaces for the theatre. A new building was constructed that provides additional exhibition space for the Center's museum. There are large expanses of gallery spaces reserved exclusively for American Indian, Latin American and American art. It was designed by architect David Tryba and built to American Alliance of Museums standards. ^{[17] [18] [19]}

Notable students

• Robert Beauchamp ^[20]
• Eric Bransby ^[21]
• James Duard Marshall
• Veronica Helfensteller ^[22]

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in El Paso County, Colorado

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
2. "Dream City Vision 2020: Alice Bemis Taylor". The Gazette. Retrieved June 3, 2013.
3. "Judson Moss Bemis House - NRHP Nomination Form". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
4. Linda DuVal; Banks; Laurence Parent (14 June 2011). Insiders' Guide® to Colorado Springs. Globe Pequot Press. p. 28. ISBN   978-0-7627-6936-0 . Retrieved July 3, 2013.
5. "Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center - NRHP Nomination Form". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
6. Sharyn R. Udall (19 June 2012). Dance and American Art: A Long Embrace. University of Wisconsin Pres. p. 29. ISBN   978-0-299-28803-7 . Retrieved July 3, 2013.
7. "An Extremely Grand Opening". Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. February 9, 2007. Archived from the original on March 30, 2015. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
8. 75th Anniversary, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, retrieved July 3, 2013
9. yongli (2017-12-11). "Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center". coloradoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
10. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/86001455_text ^{[ bare URL PDF ]}
11. Linda DuVal; Banks; Laurence Parent (14 June 2011). Insiders' Guide® to Colorado Springs. Globe Pequot Press. p. 87. ISBN   978-0-7627-6936-0 . Retrieved July 3, 2013.
12. Linda DuVal; Banks; Laurence Parent (14 June 2011). Insiders' Guide® to Colorado Springs. Globe Pequot Press. p. 97. ISBN   978-0-7627-6936-0 . Retrieved July 3, 2013.
13. "Fine Arts Center Brochure" (PDF). Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2012. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
14. "FAD's at the FAC". Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
15. "Admission". Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Archived from the original on July 13, 2013. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
16. "75th Anniversary". Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
17. Michael Paglia (August 2, 2007). "Well Done: The new Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center expansion gives plenty of reasons to applaud". Westword Magazine. pp. 1–2. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
18. "Building Expansion: The new building is now open!". Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Archived from the original on 6 October 2012. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
19. "Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, USA". Guide4Tourist. January 17, 2013. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2013.
20. Paul Cummings (1975). "Oral history interview with Robert Beauchamp, 1975 Jan. 16". Oral history interview. Archives of American Art . Retrieved 30 Jun 2011.
21. "Press Release - Update on the 75 th Anniversary mural created by local art legend" (PDF). Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2014. Retrieved June 1, 2013.
22. Sherrod, Katie (2007). Grace & Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women. TCU Press. p. 168. ISBN   978-0-87565-352-5.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center .

• The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center