Realities of Life: American Scene Painting from the Swope Art Museum’s Founding Collection

November 3 – December 31, 2017 - The Swope will conclude its celebration of the Museum’s 75th anniversary with an exhibition featuring the institution’s founding collection. In January 1941, the Swope Art Museum’s founding director, Terre Haute native John Rogers Cox (1915-1990), was given the rather daunting task of building a collection for the institution which would open on March 21, 1942. Cox, who had limited funds at his disposal, made the bold decision to focus his purchases on recent American art by living artists. In fact, with only a few exceptions, the paintings and prints included in the founding collection were created between 1939 and 1942. These acquisitions were highly publicized in the leading art journals of the day. Many of these initial purchases—including work by Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper, and Peter Hurd—remain the most celebrated paintings in the Swope’s collection.