Here’s a hint: This weekend is the 100^th anniversary of the first Armory Show. You may have heard the Armory story on NPR recently. Still need more help?

You know I’m always saying that art transforms lives. The 1913 Armory Show was one of those transformational moments for art in the United States, but also for the Columbus Museum of Art. This is the art event that changed Ferdinand Howald’s life—turning him into a collector and an art patron. Howald’s collection went on to form the heart of our internationally renowned Modernist Collection. It literally transformed our destiny.

Now about those two paintings above. Both were in the 1913 Armory Show! The one on the right is Middleton Manigault’s Clown which we acquired in 1999. Manigault was the first artist that Howald purchased. The painting on the left is George Bellows’s Mrs. Albert M. Miller—for long-time Columbusites, she was Dixie Miller’s mother-in-law. Bellows entered the portrait in the Armory Show only two months after painting it. We acquired it in 1974 from the Arnold family.

And that’s the rest of the story.

- Nannette