The Roots of Sustainability: A Timeline of Responsive Stewardship at Mia
“A museum is not great because of the size or beauty of its building. It is great because of the high quality of its collections and the way in which they are used for the good of the citizens of our community.”
—Mia Director Russell Plimpton, in a letter to the Board of Trustees, 1945
March 17, 2025—The realm of sustainability is ever-evolving. A century ago, priorities were different, and what we might call “sustainability practices” didn’t exist in the way we conceive of them today. That said, Mia’s core ethos then was as it is now: to preserve, care for, and sustain its collection for future generations. The aim has always been to maintain the beauty and wonder of art for years to come.
This timeline covers the period from Mia’s founding to the turn of the 21st century. It highlights some of Mia’s “sustainability practices” of the time and shows how they have evolved since 1885. This is the first in a series charting the museum’s progress toward its present-day commitment to sustainability.
1885–1915: A Collection for the People
The art gallery (right) on the top floor of the Minneapolis Public Library (left), formerly located at the corner of Hennepin Avenue and Tenth Street, served as the first exhibition space of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts.
In 1885, Minneapolis was developing rapidly. Thanks to the success of the city’s flour mills and railroads, the population surged from 47,000 in 1880 to 129,000 in 1885.
Concerns arose about the “gross materialism” that might accompany this period of commercial growth. Many considered art a solution. An 1882 editorial in The Tribune declared, “Industry without art is brutality.”
Around this time, 14 men and 11 women formed the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts (MSFA), dedicated to fostering a vibrant art culture in Minneapolis. The Society maintained a small gallery on the top floor of the Minneapolis Public Library. Its mission was to “foster and to promote educational, artistic, and scientific interests…[by] establishing…museums, galleries, and libraries; to acquire books and manuscripts, scientific collections, and objects of fine and industrial arts; to institute and support schools, and to provide lectures, instructions, and entertainments in furtherance of the general purposes of the Society.” The act of collecting could be viewed through the lens of the day as an act of preserving culture and making it available to future generations.
By 1911, the young organization had outgrown its space at the library and needed to expand. During an MSFA dinner on January 10, 1911, financier DeWitt Clinton Morrison announced that he would donate 10 acres of land so the society could build a museum, provided they could raise $500,000 for the building. MFSA President William Dunwoody immediately pledged $100,000, and a pledging frenzy ensued. Within 90 minutes, dinner guests had pledged another $250,000. The rest of the money for the initial construction of the museum was raised within the month. On December 24, 1912, the city granted the Minneapolis Museum of Fine Arts a permit for a brick, stone, steel, and reinforced concrete museum building estimated to cost $520,000.
1915–1920: A Building for the Ages
Copy of the January 8, 1915, edition of the The Minneapolis Journal.
On a brisk Thursday afternoon on January 7, 1915, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts formally dedicated Mia (then the Minneapolis Institute of Arts) to the public. The dedication ceremony took place at the city’s main assembly hall, the Minneapolis Auditorium on Nicollet Avenue and 11th Street. Every carefully planned detail of the proceedings proclaimed that Minneapolis had opened “an embassy in the cosmopolitan world of culture.”
More than 12,000 people packed the galleries on the first Saturday the museum was open, setting a single-day attendance record at the time for any American museum outside New York City. The local press noted that “comparatively few automobiles were parked outside the Institute, with most visitors being from the unpretentious segment of society who either walked or took streetcars.” The museum demonstrated an early commitment to accessibility—something unheard of then—by offering free admission three days a week and complimentary wheelchairs. Mia’s widespread appeal was evident, and by the end of the first month it had attracted 80,000 visitors. Attendance that first year was nearly 148,000.
1920–1955: Growing the Collection and Mia’s Mandate
Russell Plimpton (seated); his successor, Richard Davis (right); and trustee Bruce Dayton (left).
In 1921, Mia appointed Russell Plimpton, then a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as its new director—a position he would hold for 35 years. Mia flourished under Plimpton’s leadership. A peer deemed him among “the most distinguished American museum directors beyond the East Coast” because of his skill in listening to and working with people. He expanded Mia’s role in the community and enlarged its patronage, nurturing several important volunteer organizations. One of these, the Friends of the Institute, remains active today.
Plimpton also ensured Mia’s future audience by building a strong educational program for the city’s schoolchildren. Almost all elementary and junior high school classes in Minneapolis visited the museum at least twice a year for special tours conducted by a museum instructor on staff. Mia also sponsored a Gallery Club for young, aspiring artists and a weekend Story Hour, “illustrated by some object in the Museum’s Collection…that helps make vivid the life of people of other lands and centuries.” Here, Mia visitors might hear an early echo of Discovery Days.
Plimpton believed it was crucial for visitors of all ages to feel at home and welcome in the museum. He once requested that the museum custodian stop preventing schoolchildren from entering the galleries over concerns about scuffing the floors. This refreshing approach to ensuring that the museum was accessible to everyone, from all walks of life, wasn’t unheard of, but certainly wasn’t typical of the time.
1955–1975: Age of Upgrades
Henri Matisse’s “White Plumes” (1919), acquired as part of Richard Davis’s efforts to add more modern art to the collection.
In 1956, Richard S. Davis, formerly the senior curator at Mia, succeeded Plimpton as the museum’s director. A dedicated collector of modern art, he was keen to share his passion with the Minneapolis public. Although Davis appreciated Mia’s existing collection, he was “dismayed that the museum had really done nothing with the 20th century.”
Leveraging his contacts with curators, dealers, and private collectors across the country, Davis organized a 19th- and 20th-century French print show to place modern art in a historical context. The public gave the exhibition an overwhelmingly positive response, and it was extended an additional two weeks beyond its initial run.
This period also saw the beginning of deaccessioning artworks. Between 1955 and 1958, Mia sold over 4,500 art objects, including ceramics, sculptures, prints, jewelry, textiles, furniture, and at least 350 paintings. Davis aimed to develop what he considered a “masterpiece” collection that ensured high quality and responsible redistribution. The deaccessioning sales generated more than $300,000 and financed the acquisition of several significant works, including Port-en-Bessin and Betrayal of Christ.
This spending spree pushed the museum to examine its infrastructure and ensure that the artworks could be preserved and maintained for the ages. As early as the 1930s, art preservationists knew humidity could be deadly to artwork. So, in 1960, Mia installed a new air-conditioning system with state-of-the-art humidity controls throughout the building, ensuring the safety and future preservation of the collection.
In 1963, Mia hired Anthony Clark as director. Some of Clark’s projects included modernizing the curatorial files, establishing a conservation lab, publishing the first scholarly catalog of the painting collection, and encouraging the formation of a photography collection—all of these signaled an institution looking to the future.
A Minneapolis Tribune article noted, “The Institute has moved from being a rather insular retreat for the elite towards becoming a resource center for the community and state. It now has an education department, a children’s theater, an Arts Opportunity program, and an artmobile.”
1975–2001: The Birth of Modern Sustainability
External and internal views of the Tange addition from a 1975 exhibition catalog.
In the early 1970s, Mia’s leadership was rethinking how the museum presented itself to the public. Some visitors found the original building imposing and unwelcoming, and construction of the I-35 highway just a few blocks from Mia had unsettled the neighborhood. As the museum sought to expand its role and public persona in the community, an update to its image was in order. To that end, Mia enlisted Japanese architect Kenzō Tange to design a new addition to the museum building.
Tange hoped to honor Mia’s past while signaling a commitment to the future. “It becomes apparent from looking at Tange’s models that community involvement and institutional programs were paramount in his design plans. The models are not architectural but conceptual models, showing not the final look of the buildings, but the spatial relations among them,” states an article in The Tribune.
With its large expanses of natural light and fresh, neutral color, the new addition demonstrated careful attention to the visitor experience and integration with the surrounding environment. “A key factor in Tange’s decision(s) was his desire to continue the green space of Washburn-Fair Oaks Park across from the museum into the Institute’s complex. The glass in front will lead the viewer through the building into the new mall,” reads The Tribune. In a 1975 exhibition catalog, architectural consultant Eileen Michels notes, “The person who enters the Institute is surrounded immediately by spaces which are pleasing and which by their own qualities encourage further exploration and intellectual participation.”
The opening of the Tange wing marked the beginning of an era of expansion for Mia. In 1975, it launched the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program as a partnership between the museum and regional artists. In 1989, Director Evan Maurer announced that Mia was adopting a free-admission policy, echoing a 1911 agreement with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to ensure accessibility for Whittier neighborhood residents.
Mia made great effort to appropriately maintain and care for the building—over 60 years old by then. The museum repaired deteriorating exterior surfaces in 1983 and redid the walls of the adjacent College of Art and Design with a more climate-appropriate variety of brick. In 1996, masonry workers tuckpointed the existing chimney, repairing the mortar joints between bricks. This attention to the building’s structural integrity has remained essential to Mia’s sustainability efforts today.
In 1991, Mia filled in the south-facing open areas of the museum’s E-shaped structure to expand interior administrative and gallery space. Mia opened the Arts of the Americas and Arts of Asia galleries in 1994, and further renovations in 1998 focused on the museum’s second and third floors to house new collections.
This trajectory of renewal and expansion helped position Mia as a vital cultural hub, embodying a blend of tradition and modernity that continues to inspire engagement and exploration.
Mia has continually evolved to respond to the changing needs of its community while responsibly stewarding the collection. From its inception in 1885, it has recognized the intrinsic value of art in enriching lives and inspiring wonder. Beginning with the 1915 dedication of its galleries to the public, Mia has deepened its commitment to education, connection, and community engagement over the decades. The next article in this series will explore how Mia has deepened its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility, beginning in the early 2000s.
More Resources
- • Minnesota Digital Library: Early Days: An Account of the Founding of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts
- • Minnesota Digital Library: Catalogue of the First Annual Art Exhibition, March 27–April 15, 1900
- • MNOpedia: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)
- • Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York: Exhibition of Paintings by Members of the Whitney Studio Club of New York, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, December, 1927