The Springfield Art Museum at an Aug. 24 open house announced its temporary closure starting Sept. 3, reopening in February 2025 downtown at the Wilhoit Building, 431 S. Jefferson. The Wilhoit Building will serve as the museum’s location for the next three years as the museum undergoes a renovation and expansion.
At the event, Mayor Ken McClure announced the museum has raised nearly $38 million toward its $50 million campaign goal. Having raised more than 75% of its total goal, the museum is slated to break ground on the first phase of construction in January 2025.
“It’s been made possible by the commitment of our public and private interests that recognize the museum’s impacts across our community and the region, and the economic impact and the driver that it has as a quality of life asset,” McClure said.
Not the first time the Wilhoit Building has housed the museum
“We’re pleased to announce that the Springfield Art Museum will return to its roots – moving back into the Wilhoit Building at 431 S. Jefferson in downtown Springfield,” said Museum Director Nick Nelson.
The museum was founded in 1928 by State Teachers College (now Missouri State University) art department chair Deborah Weisel and several other women in her Art Study Club. One of those women was Della Wilhoit, whose husband built the E.M. Wilhoit Building on Pershing Street in downtown Springfield in 1926.
When the museum outgrew its first home in the Midtown Carnegie Library in 1929, the Wilhoits offered the museum six rooms in their building, rent free. For eight years, the museum hosted an annual loan exhibition, an annual competitive exhibition for Ozarks artists, and one and two-person exhibitions by local artists in the Wilhoit Building. In 1937, the museum moved into the basement of Historic City Hall and eventually became a department of the City in 1947 when the Art Study Club (now Southwest Missouri Museum Associates) deeded the museum and its collection to the citizens of Springfield.
The museum’s Wilhoit Building location is currently being renovated. Nelson anticipates programs and classes will open to the public in the new space in February 2025.