The Richmond Art Museum was founded in 1898 as the Art Association of Richmond, Indiana. Artist John Elwood Bundy and author and attorney William Dudley Foulke were instrumental in the founding.

Permanent collection

Its collection includes important works of American Impressionists, particularly from the Hoosier Group, the Richmond Group and the Taos School. Important ceramics including a significant collection of the work of the Overbeck Sisters are part of the collection housed in McGuire Memorial Hall at Richmond High School. The museum is believed to be the only public art museum connected with a public high school. An icon of the collection is a very large self-portrait of the American impressionist William Merritt Chase painted for the museum in 1915-16. Some of the more important artists represented in the collection are: