Art in Roman Life: Villa to Grave
September 19, 2003 - August 25, 2005

Together with the Museum's important collection of twenty-one Roman portrait busts, donated to the museum by Tom and Nan Riley, this exhibition features 200 Roman objects--sculpture, frescoes, jewelry, furniture, coins and other decorative art objects--borrowed from five major museum collections: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California; the Kelsey Museum, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois. This two-year installation presents these spectacular objects in a recreated Roman architectural setting and domestic context. The installation includes an exterior courtyard and interior rooms of a Roman villa, providing audiences with a unique opportunity to view and appreciate these works in their original context. Click here to see photos of the exhibit itself.

The Riley Collection of Roman Portraits

In February 1997 The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art opened a new exhibit to the public, The Tom and Nan Riley Collection of Roman Portraiture. The Riley Collection, dating to the period when Rome was at its greatest prosperity--the first century B.C. to the third century A.D.--is especially good at introducing students and those interested in ancient Rome to the diversity of the Roman world. Ranging from patricians to plebeians, the collection includes not only emperors and senators, but also men, women, and children from all walks of life. Finally, the collection provides a unique opportunity for people to get to know Romans as individual human beings who were concerned about many of the same issues that we are: identity, status, leadership, and gender.

The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

In addition to the Riley Collection, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art features the world's largest collections of works by Grant Wood, Marvin D. Cone, and Mauricio Lasansky. The museum also holds a strong collection of paintings and sculpture from the early twentieth century including many sculptures by Malvina Hoffman. The Museum also has strong collections of Regionalist art from the 1930s and 1940s, of twentieth century American prints, of work in all media by Iowa artists, and of contemporary midwestern painting and photography.