Eskenazi Museum of Art
![Eskenazi Museum of Art](/upload/gallery/5900/12451-ipmfdmysnr-1920.jpg)
The Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University opened in 1941 under the direction of Henry Radford Hope. The museum was intended to be the center of a “cultural crossroads,” an idea brought forth by then-Indiana University President Herman B Wells.The present museum building was designed by I.M. Pei and Partners and dedicated in 1982. The museum's collection comprises approximately 45,000 objects, with about 1,400 on display. The collection includes items ranging from ancient jewelry and paintings by Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. In May 2016, after the announcement of the largest cash gift in the museum's history, the museum was renamed the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art in honor of Indianapolis-based philanthropists Sidney and Lois Eskenazi.
The three permanent galleries are the Gallery of Art of the Western World, Arts of Asia and the Ancient Western World, and the Raymond and Laura Wieglus Gallery of Arts of Africa, the South Pacific, and the Americas. In the museum's Gallery of the Art of Asia and the Ancient Western World, ancient Chinese porcelains, Japanese paintings, classical Greek, Roman, and Etruscan vases, bronzes, and mosaics are on display. The Burton Y. Berry Collection of Ancient Jewelry consists of 5,000 pieces from across the ancient world.