Company Profile

Company Overview

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is known nationally and internationally for the quality and scope of its collection, which comprises some 45,000 objects and covers 6,000 years of art history. Founded in 1913, the CMA is today one of the world’s most distinguished comprehensive art museums and one of the top five in the country.

In 2013, the museum completed a $320 million renovation and expansion project designed by the architect Rafael Viñoly. The project, which was funded by a successful capital campaign, included the complete restoration of the original 1916 building and 1971 Marcel Breuer addition, as well as the addition of two symmetrical wings on the east and west sides. Central to the design is the large, light-filled Ames Family Atrium, enclosed by an elegantly soaring roof. The CMA is now considered one of the most beautiful and impressive civic spaces in Northeast Ohio and its galleries are among the finest of any museum.
Key elements of the expansion project include:
• An increase of 33 per cent in gallery space, with enhanced interpretation of the collection through state-of-the art technology as well as installations that engage both the first-time visitor and the long-time devotee;
• Gallery One, a 13,000-square-foot interactive introductory space that includes The Collection Wall, the largest multi-touch screen in the United States -- a 40-foot, interactive, micro-tile wall that changes every 40 seconds and features more than 4,200 works of art from the permanent collection;
• The 39,000-square foot, glass-enclosed atrium—Cleveland’s largest free public space;
• A rededication of the Breuer building to its original mission of education with renovated classrooms, lecture and performance halls and a distance learning studio;
• Restored integrity of the 1916 building including upgraded mechanical and structural systems with the latest environmental controls throughout;
• Improved and expanded special exhibition spaces for preeminent loan exhibitions from around the world;
• A more prominent location for the Ingalls Library, including an expanded reading room.
The CMA has more than 400 employees and an operating budget of $38 million. Its endowment now stands at more than $750 million. Founded “for the benefit of all the people forever,” the CMA remains free to all visitors with attendance at close to 600,000 annually.

The museum’s most recent strategic plan, completed in 2010, stresses the primary importance of the collection as the foundation for everything the museum does. It also underscores the primacy of the visitor experience and the museum’s participation in the life of the city and the surrounding community while balancing local responsibility with a national and international presence. The museum is about to develop a new strategic plan that will establish the vision and guide the work of the next five years.