Delaware Art Museum

The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle. The collection focuses on American art and illustration from the 19th to the 21st century, and on the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement of the mid-19th century.

The museum building was expanded and renovated in 2005 and includes a 9-acre (36,000 m²) Sculpture Park, the Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives, studio art classes, a children's learning area, as well as a cafe and museum store.

The museum was founded in 1912 after Howard Pyle's death as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts (WSFA), with over 100 paintings, drawings, and prints purchased from Pyle's widow Anne. Pyle was the best-known American illustrator of his day; he died unexpectedly in 1911 while on a trip to Italy.

Pyle left behind many students and patrons in his home town of Wilmington who wished to honor his memory through the museum, including Frank Schoonover, Stanley Arthurs, and Louisa du Pont Copeland. The museum's charter stated its purpose "to promote the knowledge and enjoyment of and cultivation in the fine arts in the State of Delaware."

From 1912 to 1922, the WSFA did not have a permanent home. It held annual exhibitions at the Hotel duPont of work by Pyle, as well as juried exhibitions of his pupils and other Delaware artists. The Pyle Collection continued to grow due to the largess of Willard S. Morse, who gave over 100 Pyle pen and ink drawings to the WSFA between 1915 and 1919. In 1922, the WSFA rented three rooms in the New Library Building on the corner of 10th and Market Streets in downtown Wilmington.

In 2005, the DAM took out a $24.8 million loan in the form of tax-exempt bonds (to be repaid by 2037) in order to finance an ambitious $32.5 million doubling in size of its building. During the 2008 financial crisis, its endowment dropped from $33 million to $21 million. In response, the museum sold $30 million worth of art from its collection in order to repay its loans and increase its endowment, a move that brought sanctions from the Association of Art Museum Directors.

In 1931, the estate of Samuel Bancroft contacted the WSFA with an offer to donate a collection of Pre-Raphaelite works, along with 11 acres of land to house a museum for the collection. Bancroft acquired the collection beginning in the 1890s and it is the "largest and most important collection of British Pre-Raphaelite art and manuscript materials in the United States." Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, the WSFA raised $350,000 for the new building which opened in 1938. At the same time, the name was changed to Delaware Art Center. The new building was designed by architects Victorine & Samuel Homsey and associate architect G. Morris Whiteside II.

The WSFA moved into the Delaware Art Center in June 1938, with the Wilmington Academy of Fine Arts running educational programs on the ground floor. The onset of World War II resulted in strict gas rationing, which drastically reduced the attendance to the museum. The Wilmington Academy of Fine Arts disbanded in 1943 and turned its assets over to the Delaware Art Center, forming the basis of its education department, which grew to more than 500 students by 1954.