Sioux City Art Center facts for kids

The Sioux City Art Center is a cool place in Sioux City, Iowa, where you can see amazing art. It started way back in 1937 as a special project called the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Back then, a group called the Art Center Association of Sioux City, along with the Sioux City Junior League and other helpers, got $3,000 to create the very first art center.

When the government program ended in 1940, the Sioux City City Council decided to keep the Art Center going. They voted to fund it and set up a special group called the Board of Trustees in 1941 to manage its money.

The Art Center's Story: How It Began

The idea for an art museum in Sioux City started with a group called the Sioux City Society of Fine Arts. People like John C. Kelly and Cora E. Henderson helped create this group. Their main goal was to share and teach about fine arts, helping art grow in Sioux City.

On March 10, 1938, the Society of Fine Arts changed its name to the Art Center Association of Sioux City. They found a new, permanent home for their art shows and classes in the basement of the August Williges building. This new space was made possible by working with the Junior League, local businesses, volunteers, and the WPA program. This teamwork led to the first real art exhibition space in 1938.

What Art Can You See?

The museum started collecting art in 1938 as part of the WPA project. Most of the art they own is by artists from Iowa and the wider Midwest region. They also have a smaller collection of art by famous artists from other places, often showing landscapes or scenes important to the region.

The collection includes works by many well-known artists. Some of these include Thomas Hart Benton, Dale Chihuly, Salvador Dalí, Robert Motherwell, and Grant Wood. Seeing their art up close is a special experience!

Special Art Shows and Exhibits

Besides showing art by local artists, the Art Center also has a "Blockbuster Series" of big, exciting exhibitions. This series started in 2003. Past shows have included "Becoming a Nation, Art and Americana from the US Department of State" and the very famous "Mural" by Jackson Pollock.

Grant Wood's Corn Room Mural

The Sioux City Art Center is home to one of Grant Wood's amazing "Corn Room" murals. Grant Wood was a famous American painter. This mural was one of four that a businessman named Eugene Eppley asked him to paint in 1927 for hotels in different cities.

The "Corn Room" mural was first painted for the dining room of the Martin Hotel in Sioux City. In the early 1950s, it was covered up with wallpaper and forgotten for many years. Then, in 1979, a person named Leah Hartman rediscovered it! She was interviewing Carl Eybers, who had helped Wood paint the mural. Because of her discovery, the mural was carefully taken from the hotel and saved by the Sioux City Art Center. Now, you can see it on permanent display in a special room at the Art Center.

Fun Art Classes and Programs

Every year, the Sioux City Art Center offers about 100 different classes. These classes are for all ages, from young children to adults. They usually last five to ten weeks. You can learn cool things like painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, pottery, sculpture, and even glass art!

There are also special weekly programs for kids. The "Saturday Art Lesson" is for children aged five to twelve. It offers two-hour art lessons where you can dive deep into different art projects. On Sundays, "Family Fun Day" lets adults and children create art together. Both of these classes are "drop-in," meaning you can just show up and pay for that day's lesson.

The Art Center also has several yearly events. The "Youth Art Exhibition" shows off artwork made by students from local schools. High school students can join the "Artist in Residence Program." In the summer, "Summer ArtCamp" welcomes 100 children aged five to twelve. In December, there are free "Holiday Gift Making Workshops" where you can create handmade presents. Sometimes, there's a "Special Family Day" when a big exhibition is happening.

You can also see artwork made by Art Center students in the Education Gallery. The T. S. Martin Atrium is another space where the Education Department sets up different art shows and activities. The Art Center even offers "Artful Birthday Parties" for children!

The Art Center's education program does more than just offer classes. They have a "Docent Program" with 15 volunteers who give over 100 tours each year. These tours are part of the "ARTWORKS Program" for fifth-grade students. All fifth-graders in the area get free bus rides to the Art Center. They get a guided tour of the current art shows and then get to create their own art inspired by what they saw. The Art Center also offers internships for college students, where they can earn college credit for helping out.

The Amazing Art Center Building

The Sioux City Art Center building is really big! It has a total size of about 4,227 square meters. About 929 square meters are used for showing art in the exhibition galleries. Another 465 square meters are used for classrooms where you can learn to make art.

In 1985, a person named Margaret Ann Everist started a special fund to build a new Art Center. The Art Center Association, led by William T. Dible and Dr. Frederick Stark, also worked hard to raise money. The new building would be more than three times bigger than the old one and cost $9.2 million. The City of Sioux City gave $1 million, and the Association raised the other $8.2 million. Thanks to Margaret Ann Everist's vision, the new building became a reality.

Planning for the new building started in 1991. The ground-breaking ceremony, which is when construction officially begins, happened on August 24, 1994, at 225 Nebraska Street. Joseph Gonzalez from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the museum. W.A. Klinger, Inc. built it, and Hubert H. Everist helped oversee all the details.

The new museum, which opened because of Margaret Ann Everist's dream, has lots of cool features. It has 929 square meters of space just for art exhibits. There's also a lecture hall with 131 seats, a gift shop called the Atrium Gift Gallery, and a special "Junior League Hands On! Gallery" where you can get creative. It has modern classrooms, a fully equipped darkroom for photography, a ceramics studio, and a special climate-controlled vault to keep the Art Center's permanent art collection safe.

After almost twelve years of raising money, planning, and building, the new Sioux City Art Center opened its doors on March 1, 1997. It's a huge building, about 4,227 square meters! In its first year, 80,000 people visited the new museum. That was three times more visitors than in any previous year! In 2001, the Art Center even won an award for Tourism and the Arts from the Iowa Tourism Office.

The Sioux City Art Center has won many awards. In 1997, it was named "Cultural Attraction of the Year" by the Iowa Division of Tourism. In 1998, it was called "Arts Building Communities/Arts Organization of the Year" by the Iowa Arts Council. And in 2000, a newspaper called the "Omaha World Herald" said that the opening of the new museum was one of the ten most important art events of that decade in the Midwest!