THE INAUGURATION

The Cleveland Museum of Art was formally dedicated to the great work it is to accomplish in the world , on Tuesday , June 6 , 1916 .

At four o ' clock on the afternoon of that day the members and distinguished guests from other cities gathered at the invitation of the President and Trustees in the Lecture Hall of the new building , where they were welcomed by the Honorable William B . Sanders , President of the Museum .

JUDGE SANDERS Ladies and gentlemen , members of The Cleveland Museum of Art : A very pleasant duty is assigned to me this afternoon , and that is to formally announce , on behalf of the Trustees of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust , the Horace Kel ley Art Foundation , and the Building Committee , that your building is now complete and that its administration is to - day turned over and committed to your charge . I hope we may con fidently assume that the attendance here this afternoon is a sure omen of a like continued interest in the activities of the Museum in the days to come .

In the fourteenth century , an art - loving people in Italy , amid the distractions and distresses of war , wrought wondrous things in the world of art . In the proud city of Florence , while her citi zens were battling with foes without , and striving and struggling in bitter and bloody quarrels within her walls , Giotto designed and in large measure constructed the campanile of the cathedral , and the Florentines waited and watched and eagerly hoped for the completion of Giotto ' s Tower , which Longfellow somewhere describes as “ the fair lily of Florence blossoming into stone . ”

So , for the past two years , or nearly so , with the greater part of the civilized world suffering the horrors of war , appealing to sympathetic hearts on this side of the world , the art - loving peo ple of Cleveland have watched and waited and eagerly hoped for the completion of our Museum of Art .

We meet to - day to celebrate that event and to dedicate this building to the purpose of its founders - “ to the maintenance in Cleveland of a Gallery and Museum of Art for the promotion and cultivation of art in this community . " In such a gathering it is fitting that we first acknowledge the debt of civic gratitude that we owe to John Huntington and Horace Kelley , whose