Ding Darling Edmundson Trust Letter

Ding Darling (1876 – 1962) was an American political cartoonist who spent most of his adult life in Des Moines. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1924 and 1943. This letter pertains to the Des Moines Art Center and its establishment.

Ding was a founding member of the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts (DMAFA), which was established in 1917, and likely met Carl through this organization. DMAFA’s purpose was to establish “an institution of Art” in the city; they hosted traveling exhibitions in a gallery at the city library and over the years purchased several works to become the basis of the their dream institution’s permanent collection.

In 1933, James D. Edmundson passed, setting aside in his will a bequest that must accrue over a minimum ten years into a minimum $600,000 that would to be used to erect, fund, and fill an art museum in Des Moines. The trustees of the Edmundson will and the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts became obvious allies.

DMAFA operated until 1945, bolstered during WWII by the WPA (Works Progress Administration), but it dissolved after the war and was absorbed by the Edmundson Art Memorial Foundation. This included the purchased collections of the DMAFA and what little finances it had left.

Carl made an effort to have Salisbury House made into what would become the art center, however Edmundson was specific in that half of the bequest for an art museum, “be used in the erection of a suitable building for the use of said art museum, said building to be made as nearly fireproof as practicable.” He even went so far as to specify, “I especially direct the Trustees to disapprove of any location for said art museum east of West Fourteenth Street, unless the smoke nuisance in said city shall have been so far abated or overcome.”