Speed Art Museum
Encyclopedia
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest, largest, and foremost museum
of art
in Kentucky
. It is located in Louisville, Kentucky
in historic Third Street designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
next to the University of Louisville
Belknap campus.
The museum offers visitors a variety of unique art experiences outside of its world-class collection and international exhibitions, including the Speed Concert Series, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
, and the popular late-night event, Art After Dark.
Today, the Speed houses ancient, classical, and modern art
from around the world. The focus of the collection is Western art, from antiquity to the present day. Holdings of paintings from the Netherlands, French and Italian works, and contemporary art are particularly strong, with sculpture prominent throughout.
Admission to the museum is free for members and $10 for non-members. The museum presently receives around 180,000 visitors per year and is supported entirely by donations, endowments, grants, ticket sales, and memberships.
established the museum in memorial of her husband James Breckenridge Speed
, a prominent Louisville businessman, art collector, and philanthropist Ms. Speed set up the endowment to fund the museum, encouraging the museum to never charge admission.
Timeline
1927 - The Speed Art Museum is built. More than 74,000 visitors fill the museum in the first year.
1933 - The museum is incorporated as a privately endowed institution and its board of governors
was established.
1934 - The museum received its first major donation
, a valuable collection of North American Indian artifacts given by Dr. Frederick Weygold.
1941- Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite makes a significant gift to the museum - his collection of 15th century and 16th century French and Italian Decorative Arts including tapestries and furniture
.
1944 - Satterwhite donates the English Renaissance
room, which was moved in its entirety from Devon
, England. Dr. Satterwhite’s gift necessitated an enlargement of the museum and in his will he provided for the addition that bears his name. Completed in 1954, it was the first of three additions to the original building.
1946 - Paul S. Harris becomes the first professional director of the museum. During his tenure, acquisitions to the collection were made mostly in the areas of decorative arts and furniture.
1964 - Recently donated paintings and furniture from the collection of Mrs. W. Blakemore Wheeler go on view including works by Mary Cassatt
, John Constable
, Gustave Courbet
, Thomas Gainsborough
, Paul Gauguin
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Maurice Utrillo
, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
1966 - Charter Collectors Group forms to assist museum in the acquisition of pre-1940 art.
1970 - New Art Collectors Group forms to assist museum to acquire contemporary art
.
1973 - The North Wing of the museum opens, giving new space for a theatre, offices, indoor sculpture court, and library.
1977- The Speed celebrates its 50th anniversary in 1977 with the acquisition of Rembrandt's magnificent Portrait of a Woman, one of the museum’s most significant acquisitions.
1983 - The 1983 Wing opens, designed by Robert Geddes of Princeton. The new wing adds much-needed gallery space for permanent collections and special exhibitions.
1996 - Mrs. Alice Speed Stoll dies, leaving behind an estate that bequeaths over $50 million to the museum. The Speed closes to undertake an extensive renovation and renaissance. Newer lighting, heating and cooling systes, bold wall colors, multi-layered labels about the collection, and the Laramie L. Learning Center, Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
are put into place in order to create richer experience for visitors.
1997 - The museum reopens, sleeker and smarter than before, showing off assets to the very best advantage.
, Ancient Art
, Native American Art
, American Art
, European Art, and Contemporary Art
.
Highlights of the collection include works by:
European Painting and Sculpture
Modernism
American Painting and Sculpture
Contemporary Art
The Museum also maintains an award-winning children's center, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
. Nearly everything in this hands-on environment is green and sustainable. Children interact with play spaces that relate to works in the museum's collection, such as a Dutch Ship from the East India Trading Company or an Engungun Costume from Africa. This Interactive Gallery aims to fosters excitement, shared memories, and confidence in young children within the museum environment.
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
of art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. It is located in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
in historic Third Street designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
next to the University of Louisville
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
Belknap campus.
The museum offers visitors a variety of unique art experiences outside of its world-class collection and international exhibitions, including the Speed Concert Series, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
The Laramie L. Leatherman Art Learning Center, colloquially known under the moniker, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery, is the children's center at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky...
, and the popular late-night event, Art After Dark.
Today, the Speed houses ancient, classical, and modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
from around the world. The focus of the collection is Western art, from antiquity to the present day. Holdings of paintings from the Netherlands, French and Italian works, and contemporary art are particularly strong, with sculpture prominent throughout.
Admission to the museum is free for members and $10 for non-members. The museum presently receives around 180,000 visitors per year and is supported entirely by donations, endowments, grants, ticket sales, and memberships.
History
The museum was built in 1927 by Arthur Loomis in the Neo-Classical style. Loomis was already well-known in Louisville for landmarks like the Louisville Medical College and Levi Brothers'. The original building was designed as an understated Beaux-Arts limestone facade giving great panache and encouragement to the wonderful experience of art the building sought to offer. Hattie Bishop SpeedHattie Bishop Speed
Hattie Bishop Speed was a pianist, humanist, and philanthropist who championed music and the arts in Louisville, Kentucky.Born Harriett Theresa Bishop in Louisville on February 12, 1858, Hattie attended Louisville and Boston private schools before going to Europe in 1886. Her music education...
established the museum in memorial of her husband James Breckenridge Speed
James Breckenridge Speed
James Breckenridge Speed was a successful businessman in Louisville, Kentucky and an important philanthropist....
, a prominent Louisville businessman, art collector, and philanthropist Ms. Speed set up the endowment to fund the museum, encouraging the museum to never charge admission.
Timeline
1927 - The Speed Art Museum is built. More than 74,000 visitors fill the museum in the first year.
1933 - The museum is incorporated as a privately endowed institution and its board of governors
Board of governors
Board of governors is a term sometimes applied to the board of directors of a public entity or non-profit organization.Many public institutions, such as public universities, are government-owned corporations. The British Broadcasting Corporation was managed by a board of governors, though this role...
was established.
1934 - The museum received its first major donation
Donation
A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles...
, a valuable collection of North American Indian artifacts given by Dr. Frederick Weygold.
1941- Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite makes a significant gift to the museum - his collection of 15th century and 16th century French and Italian Decorative Arts including tapestries and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
.
1944 - Satterwhite donates the English Renaissance
English Renaissance
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century; like most of northern...
room, which was moved in its entirety from Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, England. Dr. Satterwhite’s gift necessitated an enlargement of the museum and in his will he provided for the addition that bears his name. Completed in 1954, it was the first of three additions to the original building.
1946 - Paul S. Harris becomes the first professional director of the museum. During his tenure, acquisitions to the collection were made mostly in the areas of decorative arts and furniture.
1964 - Recently donated paintings and furniture from the collection of Mrs. W. Blakemore Wheeler go on view including works by Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
, John Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
, Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
, Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Maurice Utrillo
Maurice Utrillo
Maurice Utrillo, , born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there....
, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
1966 - Charter Collectors Group forms to assist museum in the acquisition of pre-1940 art.
1970 - New Art Collectors Group forms to assist museum to acquire contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
.
1973 - The North Wing of the museum opens, giving new space for a theatre, offices, indoor sculpture court, and library.
1977- The Speed celebrates its 50th anniversary in 1977 with the acquisition of Rembrandt's magnificent Portrait of a Woman, one of the museum’s most significant acquisitions.
1983 - The 1983 Wing opens, designed by Robert Geddes of Princeton. The new wing adds much-needed gallery space for permanent collections and special exhibitions.
1996 - Mrs. Alice Speed Stoll dies, leaving behind an estate that bequeaths over $50 million to the museum. The Speed closes to undertake an extensive renovation and renaissance. Newer lighting, heating and cooling systes, bold wall colors, multi-layered labels about the collection, and the Laramie L. Learning Center, Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
The Laramie L. Leatherman Art Learning Center, colloquially known under the moniker, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery, is the children's center at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky...
are put into place in order to create richer experience for visitors.
1997 - The museum reopens, sleeker and smarter than before, showing off assets to the very best advantage.
Highlights of the Collection
The Speed houses a collection of African ArtAfrican art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...
, Ancient Art
Ancient art
Arts of the ancient world refer to the many types of art that were in the cultures of ancient societies, such as those of ancient China, India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome.-Egypt:...
, Native American Art
Native American art
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present...
, American Art
American Art
American Art is the debut album of the band Weatherbox. It was released on May 8, 2007 on Doghouse Records. The album received critical acclaim from several sources including underground music distribution company Smartpunk, who lauded the band's style:...
, European Art, and Contemporary Art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
.
Highlights of the collection include works by:
European Painting and Sculpture
- Rembrandt
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Claude MonetClaude MonetClaude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
- James TissotJames TissotJames Jacques Joseph Tissot was a French painter, who spent much of his career in Britain.-Biography:Tissot was born in Nantes, France. In about 1856, he began study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Hippolyte Flandrin and Lamothe, and became friendly with Edgar Degas and James Abbott...
- Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael
- Gustave CourbetGustave CourbetJean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
- Auguste RodinAuguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
- Thomas GainsboroughThomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
Modernism
- Constantin BrâncuşiConstantin BrancusiConstantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
- Marc ChagallMarc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
- Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
- Jean ArpJean ArpJean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
- Jean DubuffetJean DubuffetJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
- Paul CézannePaul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
- Henri MatisseHenri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
- Paul KleePaul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
American Painting and Sculpture
- Benjamin WestBenjamin WestBenjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
- James PealeJames PealeJames Peale was an American painter, best known for his miniature and still life paintings, and a younger brother of noted painter Charles Willson Peale....
- Elihu VedderElihu VedderElihu Vedder was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City....
- John Singer SargentJohn Singer SargentJohn Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
- Mary CassattMary CassattMary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
- Edward Redfield
- Childe HassamChilde HassamFrederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...
- Hiram PowersHiram PowersHiram Powers was an American neoclassical sculptor.-Biography:The son of a farmer, Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the July 29, 1805. In 1818 his father moved to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where the son attended school for about a year, staying meanwhile with his brother, a...
- Franklin SimmonsFranklin SimmonsFranklin Bachelder Simmons was a prominent American sculptor of the nineteenth century....
- Randolph RogersRandolph RogersRandolph Rogers was an American sculptor. He was a prolific sculptor of subjects related to the American Civil War and other historical themes.-Biography:...
- Thomas BallThomas BallThomas Ball may refer to:*Thomas Ball , English divine* Thomas Ball , American sculptor* Thomas Ball , represented the Mongonui electorate...
- Augustus Saint-GaudensAugustus Saint-GaudensAugustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
- George Grey BarnardGeorge Grey Barnard'George Grey Barnard was an American sculptor, "an excellent American sculptor", the French art dealer René Gimpel reported in his diary , "very much engrossed in carving himself a fortune out of the trade in works of art." His lasting monument, rather than any sculpture of his own, is the...
- Paul ManshipPaul ManshipPaul Howard Manship was an American sculptor.-Life:Manship began his art studies at the St. Paul School of Art in Minnesota. From there he moved to Philadelphia and continued his education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts...
Contemporary Art
- James BrooksJames BrooksJames Brooks may refer to:*James Brooks , Bishop of Gloucester*James Brooks English classical composer*James Brooks , United States Representative from New York*James H...
- John ChamberlainJohn ChamberlainJohn Angus Chamberlain is an American sculptor.Born in Rochester, Indiana, John Chamberlain spent much of his youth in Chicago. After serving in the navy from 1943 to 1946, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Black Mountain College...
- Chuck CloseChuck CloseCharles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
- Sam GilliamSam GilliamSam Gilliam is internationally recognized as one of America's foremost Color Field Painter and Lyrical Abstractionist artists....
- Sol LeWittSol LeWittSolomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
- Alice NeelAlice NeelAlice Neel was an American artist known for her oil on canvas portraits of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists and strangers...
- Yinka ShonibareYinka ShonibareYinka Shonibare, MBE, is a British-Nigerian artist living in the UK. He readily acknowledges physical disability as part of his identity but creates work in which this is just one strand of a far richer weave.-Life and career:...
- Frank StellaFrank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
- Richard TuttleRichard TuttleRichard Dean Tuttle is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line.- Biography :...
Education And Community Programs
In addition to a number of art camps offered throughout the summer season, the Speed offers a Youth Apprentice Program (YAP) for high school students 14 and up who are interested in arts and cultural careers. The program exposes teens to a first-hand look inside cultural and arts organization through dialogue, discussion, training, and mentoring in order to build confidence and job skills for those seeking future careers as professional arts staff. The teens are selected based on applications and interviews annually.The Museum also maintains an award-winning children's center, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery
The Laramie L. Leatherman Art Learning Center, colloquially known under the moniker, the Art Sparks Interactive Family Gallery, is the children's center at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky...
. Nearly everything in this hands-on environment is green and sustainable. Children interact with play spaces that relate to works in the museum's collection, such as a Dutch Ship from the East India Trading Company or an Engungun Costume from Africa. This Interactive Gallery aims to fosters excitement, shared memories, and confidence in young children within the museum environment.