Time Machine: Art in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - Although a few art clubs were meeting in Cedar Rapids as early as the mid-1800s, 1905 to 1906 became the seminal time for the city's efforts to establish itself as an art community.

That period was marked by two major events. The Cedar Rapids Carnegie Library opened in June 1905 with an art room on the second floor, and the Library Art Association was organized by Coe College professor Emory Sefton with 40 charter members. Mrs. C.D. Van Vechten was its first resident.

With a place to display artwork, the Art Association was off and running. People interested in art were encouraged to become association members by paying a $1 fee, which went toward buying art for the association's gallery.

Interest in art grew along with the association's collection. In 1911, the organization opened its third annual exhibition.

'The exhibit occupies all available space in the art room as well as the corridor of the upper floor,” the Evening Gazette reported.

A committee of 40 association members pledged $25 a year for five years, guaranteeing the association $1,000 a year, and the name became the Cedar Rapids Art Association.

'The art room of the library will continue to be the place where the pictures owned by the Art Association are hung and where exhibitions will be held. The relations of the Library and the Art Association are so close that it is proper to have them housed in the same building,” said an Evening Gazette story on Feb. 10, 1912.

At its December 1922 meeting, the Art Association said reports showed it to be in very good condition. John S. Ely, Grant Wood, Marvin Cone, Mrs. Charles A. Dieman and Mrs. George B. Douglas were among the members of the board of directors that year. The association had 24 oils and watercolors as well as many etchings.

Grant brings more art to C.R.

The gallery room was open until 1928, when an experiment by the Carnegie Corp. provided a $75,000 grant to start a five-year program to bring more art to Cedar Rapids. If the effort were successful, it would serve as a model for other communities.

Edward Rowan left Harvard to serve as director of the Little Gallery, which started at 313 Third St. SE, a few doors away from the library.

Mrs. Austin Palmer donated her home at 839 First Ave. SE to be the next Little Gallery in November 1931. The first exhibit there included art by Wood, Cone, Edwin Bruns and Conger Metcalf. It also featured prose and poetry by Jay Sigmund and Paul Engle and photography by John Barry. Wood designed a 'Better Homes” room to display furniture arrangements.

During Rowan's time as director, the Art Association put on a series of fundraising Beaux Arts balls where guests wore costumes, danced and dined. The ball on Feb. 14, 1930, was at the Montrose Hotel. Ellen Douglas, daughter of George and Irene Douglas, was among the costumed winners. In 1931, Wood was noted as a guest in a Cupid costume.

The Carnegie funds disappeared in the wake of the Depression, and Cedar Rapids couldn't raise enough money to continue the program. Rowan accepted a position with a federal art project in Washington, and the Art Association moved its collection back to the library.

Expanding into the 1950s

The Art Association continued to add to its collection. In 1956, it was valued at $36,000 and included 'Woman with Plants” by Wood ($8,000), 'Old Iowa Barn” by Cone ($850) and 'Conversation Piece” by Karl Hofer ($1,200). By 1958, the organization's annual budget was $4,500.

The Beaux Arts Ball was revived in 1961 as an Art Association fundraiser. The CSPS Hall ballroom was decorated in Parisian style with another room designated 'beatnik,” with guitar music and poetry readings. It featured an art auction that included works by Vincent Price, Metcalf and an original sketch of 'Peanuts” by Charles Schulz. It raised $1,500.

In 1964, the annual ball moved to the Roosevelt Hotel.

Growth required the gallery to find more space, and in 1966, it moved to an extensively remodeled Torch Press building at 324 Third St. SE.

The John B. Turners gifted their Grant Wood collection to the Art Center in 1972, and a decade later, the Cedar Rapids Art Center, having attained accreditation from the American Association of Museums, became the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Beaux Arts Ball's last hurrah

The Beaux Arts Ball returned to the Roosevelt in 1974 for its last time. The ball was revived for a single celebration in 2000 at the Museum of Art's latest home in the renovated Carnegie Library with its 42,000-square-foot, $10 million addition that opened at the end of 1989.

This year, the Beaux Arts Ball will revive again to benefit the Museum of Art's annual fund. Partygoers - in costume or not - will gather at the museum at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 for food, music and fun.