Des Moines Women’s Club
Art History
Compiled by Liz Teufel
1885
Mrs. Patchin read a paper at the Des Moines Women’s Club suggesting that there should be a place of exhibition for the advancement of art in Des Moines.
1888
The Club obligated itself to establish and maintain an art gallery. An Art Fund Association Auxiliary was started to raise funds for art, with separate dues for art paid to this group. Mr. Gilbert donated $1,000 to the art fund.
1893
Three members, Mesdames J. R. West, James H. Windsor, and E.R. Clapp, traveled to the Chicago World’s Fair and purchased our first piece, a bronze statue of Joan of Arc. This statue is now located in the theater lobby.
1895
The Club purchased three paintings from C.E. Baldwin, director of the struggling Des Moines Academy of Arts: Portrait of a Lady, Ready for Shopping, and A Fantasy. Baldwin soon left for New York. The club, along with the board of the Iowa Society of Fine Arts, urged Charles Atherton Cumming to take over the art school.
1896-97 The Club bought Summer Afternoon by Cumming for $100, including the frame, and voted to open an art gallery that would be free to the public.
1901 The Club bought a hardwood pedestal for Joan of Arc for $20 and Old Man and Sleeping Child for $350. It was decided that the Club would purchase only originals, not copies.
1902 The members of the Club decided to raise $10,000 to build a club house. The Club presented their first public exhibition of works by Des Moines artists.
1904 The Club gave first scholarships to the Cumming School of Art.
1904-05 Mr. Cumming purchased Entering the Harbor for the Club at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis. Loading the Caravan by Edwin Lord Weeks, which had also been displayed at the Exposition, was purchased for $1,500.
1906 Racoon Forks by John D. Forgy was given to Club by Mrs. L.E. Harbach.
1907 The Club decided to move to Hoyt Sherman Place, renting the house from the city for $1.00 a year. An addition was built to the west of the house with the $10,000 the Club had raised. It was used as a gallery and auditorium. This was the first art gallery in the city of Des Moines.
1909 The Club held its first annual art exhibition. Fifty pictures were submitted.
1910 The Club purchased Venetian Castles by Thomas Moran for $2,500.
1911 Major and Mrs. S. H. M. Byers decided to leave most of their collection of paintings, engravings, furniture, and vases to the DMWC.
1920 G.D. Ellysen gave Thompson’s Bend by Gardner Symons to the Club by in memory of his wife, who was the Club President 1909-10
1923 A second art gallery was completed and the Byers treasures were installed.
1926 The Club exhibited paintings by Lillian Genth. Des Moines art patrons bought five of the works, and the F.O. Green family donated The Terrace to the Club’s collection.
1931 The Club discontinued the practice of the “purchase prize” as part of the Art Exhibition due to lack of hanging space.
1934 One hundred women were students at the bimonthly Art Fundamentals class sponsored by the Club’s Art Department.
1935 Thomas Benton was a Club speaker; he was introduced by Grant Wood.
1947 The Proteus Club gave several works to the DMWC: Landscape by George Innes, The Autumn Woodland by John C. Johnson, Meditation by Charles Cumming, Bermuda by Lawrence Grant, and Arabian Market by Francis Simon.
1950-51 La Cigale by Robert Reid was gifted to the Club by J. S. Carpenter Collection.
1952 Louise Coskery, a descendant of the art collector Captain John Collins, gave five paintings to the Club: Apollo and Venus, To the Memory of Cole, Lot and His Daughters, The Repentant Magdalen, and Children in the Wooded Landscape. At one time Apollo and Venus, Lot and His Daughters, and The Repentant Magdalen hung in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the Collins family moved to Des Moines, they brought the paintings with them.
1995 Ownership of the art collection was turned over to The Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation.
1999 To the Memory of Cole by Frederick Edwin Church was sold at Sotheby’s to Bill Gates for $4.2 million. Rosemary Hillman traveled with others to New York and reports they were treated like royalty. The money went the HSP Foundation endowment fund, which has sustained Hoyt Sherman Place.
2003 Lot and His Daughters was sold at Sotheby’s as part of the Theater Restoration Fundraiser. The correct attribution to the artist Abraham Bloemaert was made only when it was conserved in 2004 and the signature was uncovered.
2008 Meadow Sanctuary by Diane Munk was purchased in honor of the Club’s 125th Anniversary. This is the only painting now owned by the Club.
2012 Carol Pollock, Director of Hoyt Sherman Place, started the” Adopt-a-Painting” art conservation program with initial funding from the legacy of Donna Emmons, a member of the Club. Paintings were restored by Barry Bauman of Chicago, who does such work for worthy paintings belonging to nonprofits for the cost of materials. Frames were also repaired.
2016 A legacy from Club member Louise Smith funded a Scholarship for Visual Art ($50,000) and an Endowed Art Exhibition Fund ($62,500). The Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation added new signage for the paintings. The conserved Repentant Magdalene was unveiled to the public. It is Des Moines’s finest large-scale Old Master painting.
2018 The conserved painting Apollo and Venus by Otto van Veen, the oldest Old Master painting in Des Moines (ca.1600), was presented to the public. It had been found covered in dust in the attic of Hoyt Sherman Place.
2019 Our painting Raccoon Forks is included in the exhibit “Artists in Iowa: The First Century” at the Brunnier Art Museum at Iowa State University.
The Art Exhibition ended just as the Covid-19 pandemic starts.
2020 The Denver Art Museum asked to include La Cigale in a show there.
2022 The Club hosted its 114th Art Exhibition, still open to both professional and amateur artists and free to the public