Celebrating 75 years of SBMA

The South Bend Art Center opened in 1947, realizing a longtime dream of Carlotta Banta, who served as a kindergarten teacher at Perley School in South Bend for 35 years. In her last will and testament, Banta bequeathed her life savings towards the creation of an art center where “beautiful pictures would hang and where little children would come to look and to adorn the galleries with their own precious living images.” Through the vision of Banta and the efforts of countless civic leaders, the origin of what would eventually become the South Bend Museum of Art was born.