Dear Friends,
The South Bend Museum of Art stands at an exciting moment. A moment built on a proud history of creativity, community, and connection, and propelled forward by the inspiring support of people like you.
This year, we have not only grown, we have deepened our roots. Our partnerships across South Bend are stronger than ever, from Día de los Muertos celebrations with the City and the Morris Performing Arts Center to exhibitions with the Aloft Hotel that elevate the work of our students and faculty. Our studio programs are thriving, with more students engaging in new and expanded offerings like jewelry, metals, and printmaking.
We’ve strengthened our bonds with local artists through dynamic exhibitions, panels, and mixers — creating a vibrant space where creativity and community thrive together. We are also honored to celebrate the passions of our supporters, from the beauty of quilt collections shared with the public to the commitment to ensuring every young person has access to the transformative power of art.
As we move forward, our 2025–2027 Strategic Plan charts an ambitious course. Guided by our core values Integrity, Accessibility, Creativity, Community, and Sustainability, we are committed to expanding education, deepening engagement, ensuring sustainability, and building an organization ready for the future.
The path ahead is bright, but it is only possible with you. Every connection made, every student inspired, every artist elevated — all of it is powered by your belief in what the arts bring to our community.
This annual report is not just a reflection of what we have achieved, it is a catalyst for what we will build together. Your continued support ensures that the South Bend Museum of Art remains a vibrant, welcoming place where creativity flourishes for generations to come.
Thank you for standing with us. The best is yet to come.
With our deepest appreciation,
OUR MISSION
The South Bend Museum of Art celebrates the power of the visual arts by reflecting, connecting, and engaging our communities through exhibitions, collections, and art education.
OUR VISION
The South Bend Museum of Art as a cultural cornerstone, elevates the visual arts and leads our community’s cultural and intellectual vitality. We will be recognized for our innovation, inclusivity, and accessibility.
Teen Arts Coalition (TAC)
In 2024, the South Bend Museum of Art proudly launched the Teen Arts Coalition (TAC), a new pilot program focused on professional development for young artists. Partnering with Penn High School’s AP Drawing course, TAC provided students with a six-week curriculum designed to strengthen their skills beyond the studio. Participants received guided instruction in writing artist statements and exhibition proposals, presenting and discussing their work, building a professional CV, and preparing for portfolio reviews.
A core feature of TAC is its commitment to accessibility. By bringing the program directly to participating schools, TAC removes transportation barriers and ensures more students can engage in meaningful, career-building experiences.
As a culminating project, students created a community-centered Ofrenda that was featured during South Bend’s Día de los Muertos celebration. The piece was exhibited in the Museum’s gallery throughout the month of November, giving students their first taste of professional exhibition experience.
This successful pilot marks a promising start for TAC, which will continue expanding opportunities for teen artists in our community.
Studio Programs
In 2024, the South Bend Museum of Art continued to strengthen its dynamic studio programs, serving over 950 students across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including ceramics, jewelry, weaving, painting, printmaking, and drawing. Our offerings span youth, teen, and adult classes, all designed to support artistic development and enrichment within our creative community.
The studio programs not only provide access to fully equipped studio spaces and artist-led classes but also create meaningful opportunities for artists of all ages to exhibit their work, most notably through our annual Student-Faculty Show each fall.
Additionally, we had broadened our curriculum to include more entry-level courses such as Beginner’s Relief Printmaking, Beginner’s Etching, Introduction to Drawing, and Introduction to Ceramics, ensuring accessibility for those new to the arts.
Studio Updates
We established a dedicated workspace for our undergraduate residents, allowing them to develop their projects on-site during their residency. This space supports focused, uninterrupted time for the creation and refinement of their bodies of work.
We also continued improvements to our printmaking studio, which now operates as a fully green studio, free from harmful chemicals and environmentally sustainable. In addition, we acquired a new print press and received generously donated painting storage racks from Bethel College. These enhancements have allowed us to expand our painting offerings and provide students with secure, convenient storage for their works in progress.
New Printmaking Studio Launch
In 2024, the South Bend Museum of Art expanded its studio offerings with the launch of a dedicated Printmaking Studio. This new space was outfitted with a relief press and etching setup, allowing the Museum to introduce courses in monotype, linoleum relief, and copper plate etching.
Printmaking classes are now available for youth, teens, and adults, providing hands-on instruction in traditional techniques and expanding creative opportunities for all ages.
Looking ahead, SBMA is excited to grow the program further by incorporating screen-printing and woodcut printmaking, ensuring continued innovation and access within our studio art curriculum.
Undergraduate and High School Residency Program
Since its establishment in 2003, the South Bend Museum of Art has been honored to offer the Undergraduate and High School Residency Program—one of the few residency opportunities in the nation specifically designed for emerging artists at the secondary and post-secondary levels. This initiative exemplifies the South Bend Museum of Art’s enduring commitment to cultivating the intellectual and professional growth of young artists by providing a supportive and immersive environment in which they can deepen their practice, critically engage with their work, and gain formative experience within a professional arts institution culminating in an exhibition of the students’ work at the end of the residency program in the museum.
School Tours
To celebrate the launch of our new printmaking studio and highlight the importance of printmaking within our collection, the South Bend Museum of Art welcomed fifth-grade students from Penn-Harris-Madison and South Bend Community School Corporations for our hands-on art program centered on the theme of Process.
Students explored the artistic process through guided printmaking projects, with a focus on the elements of art, emphasizing line. Each student created their own print in the studio and received a sketchbook to use both during their gallery tours and throughout the creative experience. This program provided a meaningful introduction to the layered nature of art-making while encouraging close observation and personal expression with our museum docents.
Festival of Banners 2024: Pattern
The South Bend Museum of Art proudly presented the 2024 Festival of Banners, a vibrant public art exhibition that brings community-made artwork to downtown light poles. This year’s theme, Pattern, encouraged participants to think broadly—exploring patterns as visual repetition, reflections of daily life, or artistic elements such as line, shape, and texture. The theme invited thoughtful questions like: How do I define a pattern? What patterns do I encounter every day? How do patterns shape my community?
The program was open to all ages and skill levels, making space for broad community engagement. This year, we received an impressive 220 submissions, with 87 banners selected and displayed throughout downtown South Bend. The Festival of Banners continues to celebrate creativity, enrich the city’s visual landscape, and highlight SBMA’s commitment to accessibility and community-centered public art.
Acquisitions of Works by Key Regional Artists
Acquisitions of two paintings and a sketchbook by Glen C. Davies and two paintings by Mary King added to the collection’s strengths in artworks that extend the legacy of the Chicago Imagists. The purchase of David Martin’s 2023 portrait of Simon Pokagon, the 19th-century leader of the Pokagon Band, reflects an ongoing commitment to represent the arts and history of the indigenous people of our region, and to Pokagon Band artists in particular.
Solo Exhibitions of Midwest Artists
The Art League Gallery featured solo exhibitions by Lora Fosberg, David Martin, Zach Schrank, and Rev. Martin Lam Nguyen, C.S.C. David Martin, a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, showed paintings, beadwork, and regalia that combine traditions of the Indigenous people of the Great Lakes with his love of science fiction and fantasy and his work as a tattoo artist. The museum's newly acquired tattoo-on-hide portrait by Martin exemplifies this innovative approach to technique, source material, and cultural heritage.
David Martin at the reception for his exhibition, The Continuation of the Potawatomi Culture.
Dynamic Group Exhibitions
In the Warner Gallery, Whip Stitch: Quilts Are Contemporary Art brought together work by local and nationally recognized contemporary fiber artists who use quilt-making to explore conceptual and social themes. Through the pendant exhibition Old & Bold: Vivid 19th and 20th Century Quilts, which featured historical quilts from the private collection of Board Member Cari Shein, viewers saw the evolution of quilting across centuries. And at the reception, visitors participated in a community quilt-making activity for all ages!
Right: Apron Strings: Timelines by Helen Geglio, one of the artists in Whip Stitch: Quilts Are Contemporary Art. Geglio was also featured in the 2024 Art League Artist Talk and Meet and Greet.
Groundbreaking Collaborations
Rev. Martin Lam Nguyen, C.S.C.’s exhibition Looking From Inside featured site-specific, image-based installations designed to provide a contemplative space for viewers. Nguyen’s exhibition was paired with Humanity Illuminated, featuring artwork and film by many of his students in the Moreau College Initiative, a college program for individuals incarcerated at Westville Correctional Facility.
Over 200 artworks were included in Humanity Illuminated: Artwork from the Moreau College Initiative.
Diverse Community Exhibitions
Our biannual local survey exhibition, Around the Bend, continued the museum’s commitment to serve artists of all experience levels in the community. Works by 275 artists across media demonstrated St. Joseph County’s diverse and vibrant creative pulse.
Education and Curatorial Departments collaborated on an Artists' Mixer and panel discussion for Around the Bend.
“This is the first year that I have participated in the South Bend Museum of Art's Ekphrastic Event for Sharing the Muse. Not only is it exciting to have work included in the published chapbook from the event, alongside wonderful local poets, but it is an opportunity to see the art in the museum's permanent collection in a new way. The event and chapbook include poets from all skill levels and all walks of life. Community art projects like this one are so important for encouraging creativity and the exchange of ideas. Thank you, SBMA, for giving poets and writers the opportunity to be a part of the museum's art community!” — Christina Clark