By Alex Bradshaw
The Speed Art Museum, which has showcased works by great artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Degas, will soon embark on a renovation project that will take 20 years and an estimated $150 million to complete.
The museum, located on the Belknap campus, will “nearly double its exhibition and gallery spaces,” Speed Director Peter Morrin said. The renovation will include a cafe and gift shop, educational resources, classroom and studio spaces, meeting rooms and lecture facilities.
The Speed Museum hired consultants last spring to consider the possibility of moving downtown. However, there are currently no plans to move anywhere.
“We enjoy a strong relationship with the University of Louisville, and staying on campus will allow us to strengthen that relationship even further,” Morrin said.
He said that besides the reciprocal relationship that the Speed maintains with U of L, the Third Street location is very convenient, as it sits only 20 blocks from the Ohio River and is close to Churchill Downs and the Fairgrounds which he believes will draw more people.
Although the Speed Art Museum is renowned for its beautiful architecture and eclectic variety of work, changes were inevitable as the facility evolved. Morrin said that “more ambitious traveling shows” will have increased interest in the Speed when they discover that the prestigious New York firm of Cooper, Robertson & Partners, who were involved in the plans for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Yale University Art Gallery, worked with the Louisville museum.
The expansion will also allow the museum to showcase more of its permanent collection, which consists of 13,000 pieces. Due to space constraints, only 3 percent of the selection is currently displayed.
Planners have not yet decided how the project will be financed.
“The museum will complete a feasibility study for fundraising that will tell us what the community is willing to support,” Morrin said.
The expansion will also affect the Speed Museum’s mutual relationship with the University of Louisville’s Hite Art Institute. James Grubola, chair of the department of Fine Arts and director of the Hite Art Institute, supports the museum’s decision to stay at U of L.
“I don’t think the Speed overshadows our department,” he said. “Rather I feel the Department of Fine Arts and the Hite Art Institute have developed a clear mission and vision for our future – one which has us moving towards a position of regional excellence and distinction,” Grubola said.
Grubola believes that the Speed Museum and the Hite Institute are different entities that can benefit from one another. “When you have the largest, most comprehensive art program in the state and the oldest and largest art museum in the state in the same city, you would expect that we would seek out each other,” Grubola said.
Students in art programs at U of L use the Speed Museum often. Laura Bellina, an Art History student, said that having the museum near campus is a great perk. “I can go see what I am actually studying in person,” she said.
Julie Leidner, a senior majoring in Fine Arts, said the Speed Museum is a great outlet for artists to see what their international peers have done. “We have great art galleries [at U of L], but we really cannot see pieces by international artists unless we go to the Speed,” Leidner said.
Leidner said that she believes the expansion of the Speed will show the importance of art in Louisville. “The Hite Institute just isn’t funded like athletics or the science programs,” she said. “We don’t even have a color copier in the Art library.”
Leidner said students are optimistic that with the expansion more funding will be granted to the Hite Institute.
