Des Moines Art Center to open downtown branch
Though funding for many metro area cultural attractions is shrinking, the Des Moines Art Center is preparing to expand its facilities to downtown Des Moines through a public-private partnership with Wells Fargo Financial.
The Des Moines Art Center Downtown will open Nov. 10 in the Wells Fargo Financial building, 800 Walnut St., just off the front lobby. The 5,500-square-foot space represents the first satellite location from the Art Center’s galleries at 4700 Grand Ave. and its first major expansion project since 1985.
“From the Art Center’s perspective, we were interested because of all the fabulous new projects that are really making downtown Des Moines into an exciting and vibrant place,” said Art Center Director Susan Lubowsky Talbott. “We were very interested in being a part of that.”
The downtown gallery, with its crisp white walls, exposed ceilings and concrete floors, will give the Art Center a new venue for displaying more of the approximately 5,000 works it owns, the bulk of which are in storage because of limited display space. It will also house an extension of the Art Center Museum Shop and a space for group meetings.
“We weren’t really ready to build a third addition to our [Grand Avenue] campus,” Talbott said. “This came up as a wonderful opportunity that was physically feasible as well as financially feasible.”
Funds raised for the downtown branch, which will have a budget of about $230,000 per year, are separate from the Art Center’s four-year fundraising campaign that began recently.
“We did not want to put fundraising for the Art Center at jeopardy because of funding for the branch,” she said. “Our solution to that was to focus on a number of partners who would agree to make a five-year commitment to funding the branch [but] who would not normally be giving this money to the Art Center.”
The largest contribution is an annual commitment of $100,000 for each of the next five years by Wells Fargo Financial, “which is really seeing [the branch] through this year,” Talbott said. Additionally, a consortium of local business leaders has made a five-year commitment to the project, Talbott said. She said details of those contributions aren’t being made public at this time.
The city of Des Moines has discussed providing $125,000 in economic development funds to the project over a five-year period, but the City Council has not yet taken any action on that proposal, said Rick Clark, assistant city manager. “These dollars are linked to the future expansion of Wells Fargo Financial downtown,” he said.
Talbott said the Art Center has been in discussions with Polk County officials for possible funding as well.
The idea for a branch museum came up about a year and a half ago with the plans for Wells Fargo Financial’s new downtown building. The connection between the two was Kirk Blunck, the Art Center’s board president, whose architecture firm, Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck, designed the building.
“This expansion for the Art Center comes at a very interesting time when many cultural organizations are contracting,” Blunck said in a prepared statement. “The art center’s board feels it is imperative to fight this trend. … This is so important for so many reasons, but the truth is that creativity fuels the engine of a community. This is good for both the Art Center and for Greater Des Moines.”
The Art Center has raised enough money to open the downtown museum and present two to three changing exhibitions per year, Talbott said. Its goal is to raise enough money to fund four exhibitions per year, the same as the main Art Center.
The downtown gallery’s first exhibition will be “Sweet Dreams, Baby!” and it includes major works by the prominent members of the Pop movement, among them David Hockney, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg.
A number of works exhibited will be new gifts from Wells Fargo that have not been seen before, as well as two major Andy Warhol works that haven’t been seen for several years because they’ve been undergoing restoration, Talbott said.
Hours for the Des Moines Art Center Downtown will be 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission, as with the Des Moines Art Center, is free.
DES MOINES ART CENTER GALA TO HONOR LEVITT
The Des Moines Art Center Gala will be held Saturday, Nov. 8, to celebrate the opening of the Des Moines Art Center Downtown and to honor philanthropist Madelyn M. “Maddie” Levitt. The event will be held at the Des Moines Art Center Downtown, located in the Wells Fargo Financial building, 800 Walnut St.
Levitt, a Des Moines native, has been a longtime supporter of the Art Center and is an honorary trustee. She recently pledged $2 million to the Art Center’s fundraising campaign through the Madelyn M. Levitt Foundation. She was a major sponsor of Almost Warm & Fuzzy: Childhood and Contemporary Art, an important Art Center exhibition that subsequently toured the United States and abroad.
During her professional career, Levitt served as director of community relations at Mercy Hospital Medical Center, director of public relations for United Way of Central Iowa, and assistant director of development at Iowa Lutheran Hospital.
In 1985, she became the first woman to chair the annual fund-raising campaign of United Way of Central Iowa, an effort that generated $7.6 million for human service needs. In 1995 she was recognized by the National Society of Fund Raising Executives as Outstanding Philanthropist.
Levitt has served on the boards of Drake University, United Way of America, Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Iowa, and the national Women’s Philanthropy Institute.
The gala begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m., followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and dinner and dancing in the ninth-floor atrium. Tickets are $250 per person and can be purchased by calling the Art Center at 271-0324.