History:

In the Central Iowa Art Association library one can find several scrapbooks recording events from the beginning  of our association through to the present. The first scrapbook helps us understand how it all began.

According to Helen Lentz, as stated in a scrapbook, the CIAA started with three regular members: Allene Gordon, Edna Wise, and Helen Lentz.

In 1944 these women were a part of a group known as the American Association of University Women (AAUW).  They held regular meetings in the basement of the public library.  These three members also made up the first art class, which had no instructor.

In the fall of 1945, they decided a teacher was necessary and recruited Nellie Gebers, a pupil of Grant Wood, a well-known Iowa artist.  They conducted class in the old senior high school on 11th Street.

In 1946 finances were limited and the class moved to the top floor of the YMCA.  At this time the group called themselves “The Creative Group.”  With Gebers active in the Waterloo Art Association, she thought it would be ideal for the Marshalltown group to organize and pattern their by-laws after Waterloo’s, and so they did.  That October the Central Iowa Art Association came into being at a luncheon at the YMCA.

In 1946, the CIAA moved to the top of the courthouse to conduct classes.  With generous help from the A.A.U.W. the CIAA was able to  get this far. It was November of 1955 that the CIAA accepted the place J.W. "Bill" Fisher offered in the Fisher Community Center.  The art center was opened in January 1958, and is still operated by the Central Iowa Art Association today.