Indianapolis Museums

Indianapolis is the state capital and largest city of the state of Indiana. Indigenous peoples inhabited the area dating to approximately 2000 BC.

In 1821, Indianapolis was founded as a planned city for the new seat of Indiana’s state government. Completion of the National and Michigan roads and arrival of rail later solidified the city’s position as a manufacturing and transportation hub.

The city’s community has supported several cultural assets, including the world’s largest children’s museum, one of the nation’s largest privately funded zoos, historic buildings and sites, and public art.

The city is home to the largest collection of monuments dedicated to veterans and war casualties in the U.S., outside of Washington, D.C.

Two museums commemorate armed forces or conflict, including the Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument and Indiana World War Memorial Military Museum at the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza.

Virtual Tour of Museums in Indianapolis

• Indianapolis Museum of Art
• Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum
• Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art
• Indiana State Museum

Highlights Tour of the Museums in Indianapolis

Indianapolis Museum of Art

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is a comprehensive art museum and one of the largest in the United States. The permanent collection comprises over 54,000 works, including African, American, Asian, and European pieces.

Significant areas of the collection include Neo-Impressionist paintings, Japanese paintings of the Edo period, Chinese ceramics and bronzes, paintings, sculptures, and prints.

Other areas of emphasis include textiles and fashion arts, as well as a recent focus on modern design.

Founded in 1883, the first permanent museum was opened in 1906 and has become recognized as innovative in its development of open source technologies and collaboration.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is on the grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and is intrinsically linked to the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400.

The museum’s exhibits also display other forms of motorsports, passenger cars, and automotive history.  

On display are over 70 cars with only a portion of the total collection exhibited at any one time. The museum’s cars are sometimes loan for exhibitions to other museums, historical car shows, and events.

The museum’s collection includes trophies, plaques, helmets, gloves, driver’s suits, and racing paraphernalia.

Exhibits include photographs, paintings, the history of Speedway, the evolution of the racetrack, and memorabilia.

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art houses a collection of visual arts by the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as Western American paintings and sculptures.

The museum exhibits a collection of traditional Western paintings and bronzes by American artists that specialized in depictions of the American Old West,  such as Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909) and Charles Russell (1864 – 1926).

There is also an extensive collection of paintings by New Mexico-associated painters, such as Ernest L. Blumenschein and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Two new galleries are dedicated to the museum’s extensive contemporary art collection, and the museum has continued to expand to include an education center, outdoor gardens, and event space.

The museum is part of Indianapolis’s White River State Park, which also houses the neighboring Indiana State Museum, the Indianapolis Zoo, the White River Gardens, NCAA Hall of Champions, Victory Field, and Military Park. 

Indiana State Museum

The Indiana State Museum houses exhibits on the science, art, culture, and history of Indiana from prehistoric times up to the present day. 

The original collection started in 1862, during the Civil War, when the State Librarian began collecting minerals and other curiosities. In 1869, a state geologist was assigned the task of organizing the collection.

The collection quickly developed when hundreds of cultural items, many relating to the Civil War, were added. A new facility was finally opened in 2002 on the Indiana Central Canal in White River State Park.

Today the museum has over 500,000 artifacts that cover the history of the natural world, Native Americans, the cultural history of Indiana.

The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites is a statewide institution with 11 historic sites spanning the state.

The historic sites include Angel Mounds, an archaeological site with surviving major earthwork mounds built by the Mississippian culture about 1000 CE.