The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, United States. The Dayton Art Institute has been rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for children. 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 (5,600 m2) building is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Overview
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 Renaissance–style building which sits atop a hill overlooking downtown Dayton. The institute highlights 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.
Exhibitions
The Dayton Art Institute’s collection contains over 27,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of art history. At any given time, the Dayton Art Institute’s collection galleries display about 1,000 works from the collection. Bed Bug Exterminator Dayton
The museum is divided into three main wings: the Berry Wing of European Art, the Dicke Wing of American Art, and the Patterson-Kettering Wing of Asian Art. The Dayton Art Institute also features galleries devoted to African Art, Ancient Art, Oceanic Art, Art of the Ancient Americas, Native American Art, Photography and Glass, and Outdoor Sculpture.
African Art
The Bonbright Gallery of African art was recently renovated and reinterpreted thanks to a generous gift from the Anderson family. The gallery, which reopened in the summer of 2019, explores the artwork of cultures from many parts of the African continent.
European Art
The Berry Wing of European Art encompasses works from the medieval period through the late 19th century, including significant collections of Italian Baroque and Dutch art. It includes notable works by Rubens, Degas, Monet, Reynolds, and Preti, among others. Selected highlights from the European collection can be found below.
Address: 456 Belmonte Park N, Dayton, OH
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