Newfields is a 152-acre campus which contains the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), Oldfields, and 100 Acres park

One of the oldest art museums in the United States, Newfields got its start in the early 1880s as the Art Association of Indianapolis.

In 1883, May Wright Sewall held a meeting in her home to discuss the organization of a society for the study and promotion of art. By October 11, 1883, the Art Association of Indianapolis was officially incorporated. The association’s goal was to establish a permanent art museum and art school in Indianapolis. The first step in reaching this goal took place in 1895 when John Herron bequeathed $225,000 to the association. Herron stipulated that the money be used to build a museum and art school bearing his name.

The John Herron Art Institute opened temporarily in 1902 at the Tinker House (or Talbot Place) on 16th and Pennsylvania streets, once the studio of  TC Steele. From 1905 to 1906, the institute’s permanent home, designed by Arthur Bohn, was constructed on the site. Two years later, a new art school building was opened just north of the museum building. The museum and art school continued to expand, and the institute erected a new building in 1929 to house the Herron School of Art.

The first professional director of the John Herron Art Museum was Wilbur D. Peat, who began his 36 years with the museum in 1929. During his tenure, the institution increased its holdings through purchases, gifts, bequests, and permanent loans. By 1942, the museum had acquired 350 paintings by 260 artists.

In 1965, Peat retired and Carl J. Weinhardt, Jr., became the new director of the museum. The following year, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Josiah K. Lilly, Jr. donated their parents’ estate, Oldfields, to the Art Association. For the next three years, the Art Association worked to convert the estate into a new home for the art museum. The Lilly mansion became Lilly Pavilion of Decorative Arts, and the construction of new exhibition buildings on the Oldfields estate began.

The John Herron Art Museum took a new name when it moved into these new quarters at 1200 West 38th Street in 1969, Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). By this time, the Herron School of Art had lost its accreditation, prompting the board to transfer the school to Indiana University on the IUPUI campus. The museum’s name change signified the divergence of the Herron School of Art and the new museum of art.

In the years following the move, the IMA continued to expand. It opened the Krannert Pavilion in 1970, the Clowes Pavilion in 1972, and the Showalter Pavilion in 1973. When Weinhardt resigned as director of the IMA in 1974, he left a flourishing museum to his successor, Robert A. Yassin.

Yassin enlarged the IMA’s curatorial department to keep pace with the expanding facility. In 1985, plans for yet another expansion were announced. The Mary Fendrich Hulman Charitable Trust made a gift of $3.5 million to the IMA for a new four-story Hulman Pavilion. When this pavilion opened on October 14, 1990, it increased the museum’s exhibition space by about 75 percent.

Bret Waller became director in 1990. He oversaw the museum’s substantial collection of American, Asian, African, and Pre-Columbian art, including Old Master, Classical, and Renaissance paintings, American and European furniture, silver, textiles, and special exhibitions. More important works were added to the collection in 1997 and 1999 including 101 works by Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven and 100 works from Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco, Cranach, Jan Breugal, Constable, Claude, and other European masters.

In addition to exhibition space, the IMA also housed the Alliance Museum Shop, the Alliance Rental and Sales Gallery, and the Indianapolis Civic Theatre. The outdoor Conceit Terrace was the site of summer concerts, films, and special programs. The IMA greenhouse cultivated and sold flowers, herbs, and plants. The Lillys’ recreation house became the Garden on the Green Restaurant, and Newfields, a second Lilly residence on the estate, became the location of the IMA Alliance’s Better-Than-New Shop.

In 1999, IMA revealed a new campus master plan which included a 100-acre art and nature park. By 2002, ground was broken for the expansion of the museum. That same year restoration was completed on Oldfields–Lilly House & Gardens. The expanded campus opened to the public on May 5, 2005, featuring the new Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, Wood Gallery Pavilion, and Deer Zink Special Events Pavilion.

Development on the art and nature park did not begin until 2004 when landscape architect Edward Blake and architect Marlon Blackwell were selected to design the park. Funds to start work on the park, an $11 million grant from the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, came in July of 2006. The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park: 100 Acres opened in 2010.

In 2009, the IMA expanded into Columbus, Indiana after the Miller family donated the Miller House and Garden. The historic house was opened to the public two years later. The IMA entered more new territory in 2015 when it became the first art museum in the United States to open a preschool. It achieved this by partnering with St. Mary’s Child Center.

By 2017, the IMA was part of a sprawling campus which included the museum, Fairbanks Park, The Garden, Lilly House, the Elder Greenhouse, and the Miller House in Columbus. In an effort to unify each of these features, the IMA gave the entire campus a name, Newfields.

HARRIET G. WARKEL and JESSICA ERIN FISCHER.

Indianapolis Museum of Art and Indianapolis Marion County Public Library