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| Established | 1925; in present location since 2005 |
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| Location | 225 W. 2nd Street, Davenport, Iowa, US |
| Visitors | 76,688 (2006) |
| Director | Michelle Hargrave |
| Architect | David Chipperfield |
| Public transit access |  Davenport CitiBus |
| Website | www |
The Figge Art Museum is located on the north bank of the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region. The Figge works closely with several regional universities and colleges (see below) as an art resource and collections hub for a number of higher education programs.
The museum's new building was designed by British architect David Chipperfield[1] and opened to the public August 6, 2005. The Figge was among Chipperfield's first architectural commissions in the United States. The cost of construction was $47 million, $13 million of which was donated by the V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Foundation.[2] Chipperfield also designed the Saint Louis Art Museum's east building which opened in 2013.[3] In 2023, Chipperfield was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, often regarded as architecture’s highest honor.[4]
Today's Figge Art Museum is the successor to the city-owned Davenport Art Museum, which itself began as the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery in 1925. The museum's original collection was donated by Charles Ficke (1850–1931), a successful lawyer and former mayor, who collected art from around the world.[2] Robert E. Harsche, then Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, reported that to his knowledge no American public art gallery had "started out with so large a number of important paintings as a nucleus."[5]
- ^ "Figge Art Museum".
- ^ a b "Museum History/Mission".
- ^ "Saint Louis Art Museum".
- ^ "Sir David Alan Chipperfield CH | the Pritzker Architecture Prize".
- ^ "Quad City Memory". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28.