Who Founded the Delaware Art Museum?

Art|Art Museum

The Delaware Art Museum was founded in 1912 by artist and collector, Helen Farr Sloan. Ms. Sloan was born on October 11, 1881 in Wilmington, Delaware and quickly developed a love for art at a young age. As she grew older, she began to travel around the world to learn about different cultures and their artwork.

Throughout her life, Ms. Sloan collected a large number of works from around the world, which eventually became the foundation of what would become the Delaware Art Museum. With her husband John H.W. Sloane II, she began to collect works from both American and European artists including Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer.

In 1911, Ms. Sloan presented a proposal to the City of Wilmington for a museum dedicated to art. The proposal was accepted and the museum opened its doors in May 1912 with its first exhibition of over 150 pieces of art from Ms. Sloan’s personal collection as well as private lenders and other local collections.

The original building was designed by local architects William Earl Russ Jr., William Ladd Smith Jr., and John Lawrence Hillyard in the Beaux-Arts style with an open courtyard at its center surrounded by galleries on all four sides with arched windows on each façade allowing natural light into each gallery space.

Since then, the Delaware Art Museum has grown substantially with over 12,000 works in its collection today including American Impressionism, 19th century landscape painting, British Pre-Raphaelite art, 20th century modernism as well as illustration art from popular culture books such as “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wind in The Willows” among many other genres of artwork from around the world spanning centuries of art history.

Conclusion: The Delaware Art Museum was founded by artist and collector Helen Farr Sloan in 1912 who had a passion for collecting artwork from around the world which eventually became the foundation for what is now one of America’s premier art museums.