Ellnora Decker Krannert (May 20, 1890 - July 6, 1974) was a philanthropist with a passion for the arts, drama, dance, and music.
Ellnora was born in Noblesville, Indiana to Pheobe Katherine Spencer Decker and Philip Greene. She earned a bachelor's degree in music from Brenau College and was bestowed honorary doctorates in the humanities, law, fine arts, and music from University of Indianapolis, University of Evansville, Indiana University, and Butler University, respectively. [1]
In 1919, she married Herman C. Krannert in Anderson, Indiana. [2] They moved to Indianapolis in 1925 and founded the Inland Container Corporation.
Ellnora and Herman made several transformative gifts to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Herman had earned a mechanical engineering degree. Because of Ellnora's passion for the arts, the couple chose to support projects dedicated to those fields. She was committed to making the Midwest a center of culture and the arts as well as agriculture and industry. [3] She and her husband gave funds to establish Krannert Art Museum, which opened in 1961, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 1969. Ellnora contributed to the design of the Krannert Center and helped selecting colors, materials, and landscaping designs. Unhappy with having to wait on the street during the intermissions of Broadway performances, she urged architect Max Abramovitz to incorporate a large indoor space where crowd could gather, an aspect of the design that has been characterized as transformative in that the space functionally resembles a piazza or public square rather than a traditional lobby. [4]
Ellnora Guitar Festival, named in her honor, is held biennially at Krannert Center.
Ellnora and Herman also made substantial gifts to hospitals, universities, and museums in Indiana. They established the Robert M. Moore Heart Clinic at Wishard Memorial Hospital in 1952. This became the Krannert Institute of Cardiology, and later the Krannert Cardiovascular Research Center, which is now part of the Indiana University School of Medicine. They also founded the Krannert Foundation and Krannert Charitable Trust. They established the Krannert School of Management and the Krannert Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Purdue University. At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Krannert Pavilion was named in their honor. [5]
Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in the state outside the Chicago metropolitan area. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents in 2020.
Urbana is a city in and the county seat of Champaign County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents in 2020.
The University of Illinois System is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Illinois consisting of three universities: University of Illinois Chicago, University of Illinois Springfield, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Across its three universities, the University of Illinois System enrolls more than 94,000 students. It had an operating budget of $7.18 billion in 2021.
The Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, also known as Champaign–Urbana and Urbana–Champaign as well as Chambana (colloquially), is a metropolitan area in east-central Illinois. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the metropolitan area has a population of 236,514 as of the 2022 U.S. Census, which ranks it as the 200th largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. The area is anchored by the principal cities of Champaign and Urbana, and is home to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system.
Max Abramovitz was an American architect. He was best known for his work with the New York City firm Harrison & Abramovitz.
Herron School of Art and Design, officially IU Herron School of Art and Design, is a public art school at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is a professional art school and has been accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design since 1952.
The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is an educational and performing arts complex located at 500 South Goodwin Avenue in Urbana, Illinois and on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Herman C. Krannert, an industrialist who founded Inland Container Corporation and an alumnus of the university, and his wife, Ellnora Krannert, made a gift of $16 million that led to the Krannert Center's construction. Max Abramovitz, the architect who designed the facility, was also an Illinois alumnus.
The College of Fine and Applied Arts (FAA) is a multi-disciplinary art school at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is an academic research institution that is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois System. Since its founding in 1867, it has resided and expanded between the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana in the State of Illinois. Some portions are in Urbana Township.
The Krannert Art Museum (KAM) is a fine art museum located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. It has 48,000 square feet (4,500 m2) of space devoted to all periods of art, dating from ancient Egypt to contemporary photography. The museum's collection of more than 11,000 objects can be accessed online and includes specializations in 20th-century art, Asian art, and pre-Columbian art, particularly works from the Andes.
Ruth Lilly was an American philanthropist, the last surviving great-grandchild of Eli Lilly, founder of the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical firm, and heir to the Lilly family fortune. A lifelong resident of Indianapolis, Indiana, Ruth Lilly is estimated to have given away nearly $800 million of her inheritance during her lifetime, mostly in support of the arts, education, health, and environmental causes in Indianapolis and in Indiana.
Shōzō Satō is an artist, author, calligrapher, playwright, and a professor emeritus of the College of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is the founder and former director of Japan House, and a former artist-in-residence at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
Herman C. Krannert (1887–1972) was a businessman and philanthropist in the Midwest of the United States who made millions in the corrugated fiber products industry and subsequently made generous contributions to education and the arts. Among other substantial contributions, eleven buildings bear the Krannert name, most of them at hospitals and universities in Illinois and Indiana, including the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University, and the Krannert Art Museum and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra (CUSO) is a professional orchestra located in the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area in central Illinois, United States. The Orchestra is the Professional Orchestra in Residence at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The CUSO is led by Music Director and Conductor Stephen Alltop.
Japan House is a learning facility founded in 1976 by Shozo Sato. It is part of the College of Fine and Applied Arts, at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The facility includes three tea rooms, or Chashitsu, a tea garden (Roji) and Japanese rock garden. It currently conducts classes in Japanese tea ceremony, Japanese Aesthetics and Ikebana for university students and members of the community. An annual event at the house welcomes international students. In 2019 an expansion effort was under way.
Woollen, Molzan and Partners (WMP) is a U.S.-based second-generation architecture, interior design, and planning firm that Evans Woollen III founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955. The firm was previously known as Evans Woollen and Associates and Woollen Associates. It remained in business for more than fifty-five years before closing its doors in 2011. Woollen began by designing mid-century modern residences, but the firm's design projects expanded to include a diverse portfolio of designs for libraries, worship facilities, museums, performing arts centers, private residences, public housing, and correctional facilities, among other projects.
The Champaign-Decatur CSA, also known as East Central Illinois CSA, is a combined statistical area in the U.S. State of Illinois. It is the 104th largest combined statistical area in the U.S. It is composed of four counties, Champaign, Ford, Piatt and Macon.
Suzanne Knoebel was an American internationally known cardiologist, a member of the Indiana University School of Medicine faculty, a visiting fellow at the National Institutes of Health, and the first female president of the American College of Cardiology (1982–83). She was especially known for her interests in academic research, education, and patient care.
Caroline Marmon Fesler was an American art and music patron, cultural philanthropist, and fine-art collector. Her contributions to the Indianapolis, Indiana, arts community included financial support and gifts of fine art to the Art Association of Indianapolis, in addition to serving as a board member of Herron School of Art (1916–1947) and president of the Art Association of Indianapolis (1941–1947). Fesler was also a patron of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and founded the city's Ensemble Music Society. Her major art collecting interests and acquisitions tended toward Post-Impressionist and modernist paintings, although not exclusively, and included paintings by Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh, among others. The Marmon Memorial Collection, which Fesler established in honor of her parents, remains an important part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's permanent collections.
Christ after the Flagellation is an oil on canvas painting by the Spanish artist Murillo, created c. 1670, now in the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, Illinois, USA, to which it was given by Herman C. Krannert and Ellnora Decker Krannert in 1960. The artist also produced an earlier version of the scene, now in Boston.