Cleveland Institute of Art
Backstory and Context
The history of the Cleveland Institute of Art begins in 1882 when Sarah Kimball opened the Western Reserve School of Design for Women. Kimball began by offering classes in her home. By the 1890s, Kimball renamed the school the Cleveland School of Art and offered classes for both men and women at Cleveland's City Hall. In 1948, the school changed its name to the Cleveland Institute of Art.
The school has grown from a single instructor to offering fifteen majors from painting and drawing to recent programs such as game design. Students and faculty created art projects that were part of President Roosevelt’s WPA art program during the Great Depression. Federal support of the arts proved crucial during these years, and in World War II, the talents of the school's students supported the war effort through courses on mapmaking and medical drawing. The school later diversified its roster of classes after the war to include a variety of collegiate courses.
The institution supports a variety of rotating exhibitions of work by students, faculty, and area artists in the Reinberger Gallery. The Annual Student Exhibition allows students to take the lead in creating exhibits and interpreting their work and the work of others. During many of the institution's exhibitions, some of the works on display are available for purchase.
2. Cleveland Institute of Art. Case Western Reserve University. Accessed January 18, 2019. https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-institute-of-art.
3. Cleveland Institute of Art. Cleveland Historical. Accessed January 18, 2019. https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/47.
4. Majors + Programs of Study. Cleveland Institute of Art. Accessed January 19, 2019. https://www.cia.edu/academics/majors.
5. Photo of Cleveland City Hall. Accessed January 21, 2019. http://www.shorpy.com/node/7906.
6. Photo of Drawing Class. Accessed January 21, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20110711112854/http:/www.gordonbarrick.com/i.frederick.carl.gottwald.html.
7. Photo of George Gund Building. Accessed January 21, 2019. https://www.cia.edu/student-life/our-campus/one-campus.
8. Photo of Reinberger Gallery. Accessed Febuary 1, 2019. https://www.universitycircle.org/destinations/cleveland-institute-of-art-reinberger-gallery.