DAVENPORT, IOWA.-The Figge Art Museum (FAM) will open to the public on August 6, 2005 in a new home designed by leading British architect David Chipperfield. This state-of-the-art museum is the first free-standing public building by Chipperfield in the United States, and also his first American museum. The museum’s new location along the edge of the Mississippi River moves the Figge, the first municipal art museum in Iowa, to the heart of downtown Davenport. Reflecting the institution’s mission to provide a nexus for the cultural revitalization of the community, the opening weekend will feature non-stop programming and performances by regional organizations, local talent, scholars from the area, and key figures involved in the realization of the Figge itself. The 100,000 square-foot, $46.9 million facility, a key component in major city and state redevelopment initiatives, was designed with this community focus in mind, devoting more than half of its space to educational and public service functions. Taking advantage of the diversity of spaces and the opportunities they provide, opening exhibitions and programs will enliven the new galleries, studios, art library, auditorium, winter garden, restaurant, lobby, and outdoor plaza.

“We at the museum couldn’t be more excited to open our doors and welcome the community of the Quad Cities, and the region, to partake in this celebration,” said Linda Downs, Executive Director of the Figge Art Museum. “The Figge Art Museum is a cultural and architectural achievement made possible by the vision, leadership, and support of the community. Now all of us will reap the benefits of that dedication, as this renewed museum connects us to our cultural heritage by providing art and educational experiences that enrich us and our surroundings, while also reconnecting us to our neighbors and drawing visitors downtown to enjoy art, music, dance, good food, and company.”

The museum will be formally dedicated with a Native American blessing ceremony performed on the plaza at 8:45 a.m., followed by the official ribbon cutting with Mayor Charles Brooke and other dignitaries and community leaders at 11 a.m. Performances on the plaza begin at 10:30 a.m. with the Bix Beiderbecke Youth Jazz Band, paying tribute to Davenport as home of the jazz great, and a variety of street performers. Introducing the public to this architectural and cultural asset, hourly tours of the Figge building and permanent galleries will run on the hour, with the first beginning at noon.

During this inaugural period the galleries will highlight the museum’s permanent collection, only 1% of which could be displayed at a time at its old facilities. The newly installed collection, which will allow the highlights from all the collections to be permanently on view, will follow a chronological order for Western art, with European and American works from the 15th century to the present on display and with a special gallery devoted to Regionalism and the Figge’s significant Grant Wood holdings. The FAM’s particularly strong collections in Mexican Colonial and Haitian Art will each have their own gallery and representative alters either end of a linking hall. In addition, the special exhibition Feast the Eye, Fool the Eye, featuring 43 paintings by European and American masters of still-life and trompe-l’oeil painting, will be installed through October 9, 2005 and The Fourty Part Motet (2001), a sound installation by Janet Cardiff is on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York for the opening through August 21.

Other program highlights for the opening weekend include pianist Dan Knight performing in the lobby on a Steinway piano designed by Dale Chihuly and dance performances by the Quad City Ballet, Ballet Folklorico, the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, and the Iowa/Illinois Youth Ballet, among others, throughout the galleries. Jazz and classical performances will be complemented by poetry readings and yoga classes, and artist workshops including demonstrations of oil and watercolor, ceramics, wood, drawing, and printmaking will give visitors a chance to create, as well as experience, art at the museum. As an institution dedicated to educational programs and audiences of all ages, numerous activities will be designed for children and families to participate and enjoy. All opening events are free with regular admission.

Culture and the Quad Cities - Once again emerging as a premier cultural destination in the Midwest, the Quad Cities, comprising Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline and Rock Island in Illinois, has a long history of civic support for cultural institutions. Drawing upon the nineteenth-century economic prosperity of the region, the Quad City Symphony was founded in 1916, and the institution that has become the Figge, the Davenport Museum of Art, was established in 1925 by the City and local patrons. Recently restored, The Adler Theatre, an art deco landmark built in 1931, was one of the last great movie palaces to be built in the U.S. The Ballet Quad Cities is one of the only professional ballet companies in Iowa, and the 12,000-seat MARK of the Quad Cities hosts national and international concerts, among other events. In 1964 the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, designed by noted Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, was completed, imbuing the area with its first internationally significant architectural landmark.

Each year the Quad Cities also attracts tens of thousands of residents and visitors to its many music festivals including the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, and the Quad City Symphony Pops Concert. The recently launched River Music Experience, an interactive museum tracing the area’s rich history of jazz and blues, will add to these with its first annual River Roots Festival on August 19 and 20, 2005, which will be held across the street from the Figge and be complemented by museum programming tied to the themes of the festival.

Figge Art Museum - In 1925, local patrons and the city of Davenport established the Davenport Museum of Art, the first regional art museum in the state, demonstrating an early interest in providing cultural opportunities to the community. The museum’s permanent collection reflects a strong tradition of civic pride and philanthropy within the community. In addition to an important Regionalist collection with works by Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and others, the FAM houses two of the most important collections of Mexican Colonial and Haitian art outside of their native countries, all of which developed from early gifts by local collectors and museum patrons.

Over the years, the museum’s collection of approximately 3,500 works and their ambitious programming activities had outgrown the existing facility. In the late 1990s, a campaign began to create a world-class facility in a new location along the riverfront, more strongly connecting the museum to the city center. A lead gift of $13 million from the Figge Foundation, whose founders, V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge, were longtime patrons of the arts in the Quad Cities community, made this possible. In 2003, the transition was made from a public art museum to a private institution, which was renamed the Figge Art Museum in recognition of the Figge’s instrumental support. The museum’s move and transformation also became the centerpiece of River Renaissance, a $113.5 million city initiative to redevelop and revitalize downtown Davenport and its riverfront.