Locals call it the CMA, and you're facing the building Columbus built here in 1931 after decades of change. This institution began in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts and was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collects and exhibits American and European modern and contemporary art, along with folk art, glass art, and photography.
Feel the long arc of time: in 1919 the museum moved into the Francis C. Sessions house — Sessions was a founder of the Columbus Art School, later known as Columbus College of Art and Design — and Sessions deeded that mansion and property to the museum. The museum operated in the house until 1923, when the house was demolished and the current building was constructed on the same site between 1929 and 1931, opening here on January 22, 1931. Look for Beaton Hall, which preserves elements from the entranceway of the Sessions house.
A discreet addition was added to the rear in 1974, and the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 19, 1992. The museum has been led by Executive Director Brooke Minto since 2023. Notice Beaton Hall's entrance, salvaged from the Sessions mansion that once stood on this very site.