arts
A century of beauty
Fort Wayne Museum of Art celebrates its 100th anniversary story by Julie Campbell
Counterclockwise: Fort Wayne Art Institute figure drawing class, 1920s Theodore F. Thieme, 1926 Alice Neel visit, 1979 Fort Wayne Art School students, 1970s
A lot can happen in 100 years. Babies born. Leaders buried. Wars and rumors of wars. Economic booms and banes. Inventions. Advances in science. Art. Life. In the last century, Fort Wayne Museum of Art (FWMoA) has seen it all. Shortly before its opening in 1921, the world had just recovered from the Spanish 92
traveliN Spring 2021
Flu pandemic. Now, during its 100-year celebration, society is in the middle of another pandemic. But that hasn’t stopped the museum from celebrating, both virtually and safely in person. For 18 of the past 100 years, Charles Shepard III has served as president and CEO of the FWMoA. An artist himself,
Shepard grew up in Maine, where many artists would spend the summer to get away from city life. “I didn’t grow up in an artistic family. As a kid, I would mow lawns for artists in the summer,” he recalls. “And one of them asked me, ‘Do you know how to stretch a canvas?’” From that moment on, Shepard was hooked. “Once I got into art, it was a real driving thing for me,” he says, recalling how he would put art shows together and display them in coffee houses. “I realized if you could show someone art that delights them, you could win them over.” That philosophy is what drives Shepard as he leads the museum through the next century. “We’re curating with that person in mind who thinks they don’t like art,” he explains with evident excitement and passion in his voice. “You don’t have to dress up and know anything special. Just come in and see if you like it!” Originally starting out as an art school, the function of museum was added to the school when a collection of ten paintings was donated by Theodor Thieme, a prominent Fort Wayne citizen. Although times have changed since Thieme’s donation, the basic principles on which the museum was founded remain the same. “The museum exists to collect, preserve, educate, and exhibit,” says Shepard. “Those principles have been challenged over the years, but when you
