The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, United States. The Dayton Art Institute was rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for kids. The museum also ranks in the top 3% of all art museums in North America in 3 of 4 factors. In 2007, the art institute saw 303,834 visitors.
History
Founded in a downtown mansion in 1919 as the Dayton Museum of Fine Arts, the museum moved to a newly designed Edward B. Green building in 1930. The DAI was modeled after the Casino in the gardens of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, and the front hillside stairway after the Italian Renaissance garden stairs at the Villa d'Este, near Rome, and Italy. It is also visible from and easily accessible from I-75, which passes through the center of Dayton.
The museum was later renamed the Dayton Art Institute as an indication of the growing importance of its school in addition to the museum. The nearly 60,000-square-foot (5,600Â m2) building is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museum information
The museum's collection contains more than 20,000 objects spanning 5,000 years. In September, 2005, the Museum became one of eleven galleries in the US to host The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt, the largest collection of ancient artifacts ever to travel outside Egypt.
The art museum is an Italian Renaissanceâ€"style building, which sits atop a hill overlooking downtown Dayton. The Institute's highlights are the museum's Asian, 17th-century Baroque, 18th- and 19th-century American, and contemporary art collections. In addition to its collections, the museum frequently features other exhibitions.
Notable works
Some of the most notable works held by the Institute are:
- The Song of the Nightingale by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
- Study Heads of an Old Man by Peter Paul Rubens
- High Noon by Edward Hopper
- Aurora Red Ikebana with Bright Yellow Stems by Dale Chihuly
- After the Bath by Edgar Degas
- Stacks in Celebration by Charles Sheeler
- Scene in Yosemite Valley by Albert Bierstadt
- Allegory of the Four Seasons by Bartolomeo Manfredi
- Water Lilies by Claude Monet
- American Indian Series (Russell Means) by Andy Warhol
- Untitled by Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Homage to Painting by Roy Lichtenstein
Gallery
References
External links
- Official website