Mark Bennett: Fred Nation guiding Swope through makeover, then stepping down

Yahoo

18-04-2025

A couple strolled through the Swope Art Museum earlier this month, eyeing the paintings, sculptures and drawings.
Initially, it was the couple's tall stature that caught Fred Nation's attention.
Then, Nation — the Swope executive director — talked with the visitors and learned they'd traveled to Terre Haute from Denmark. Curious, Nation asked why.
'We came to see the Larry Bird Museum,' they told Nation.
'Who would've guessed?' Nation said Wednesday afternoon, recalling the moment.
Museums are Terre Haute tourism niche, with nearly a dozen. The Haute's museums-per-capita ratio was 86th-best out of 1,318 places in the last year's Best Small Cities in America rankings by WalletHub.
Coupled with downtown improvements and an 'open and welcoming' atmosphere, Terre Haute's future looks bright to Nation, a lifelong resident and active advocate for his hometown. 'This community's on the map for its cultural amenities,' he said.
Nation has overseen one of Terre Haute's oldest museums, the Swope, for more than eight years — at first on an interim basis, and then as its full executive director since 2019. He's the 13th person to serve in that capacity since Terre Haute artist John Rogers Cox led the Swope's opening in 1942. Nation's stint is likely the third longest, according to his research.
Now, Nation is guiding the museum through a major renovation project that will require the Swope to close to the public from June 1 through Jan. 1, 2026. He's also steady-handedly steered fundraising efforts for the makeover, with contributions already totaling $6.3 million of an estimated $7-million project.
Famed sports artist captured 'motion' of 1962's classic Indy 500
In this 2021 photo, Theo Nation, then 4, grasps an imaginary steering wheel and makes the sound of a racecar as his grandfather, Fred Nation, executive director of the Swope Art Museum, points out the cars in a colorful scene in a painting by LeRoy Nieman in one of the museum's galleries.
Once the project is done, and 2025 is done, Nation also will done as executive director. The 81-year-old intends to retire from his Swope post by Jan. 1.
'It's just time for a younger person, with new ideas and new energy,' Nation said from his office inside the Italian Renaissance-style building at the corner of Seventh and Ohio streets. 'It's just time.
'And to be fair to my wife [Nancy] and family, I should probably spend more time' with them, he added.
The Nations have been married 60 years. Nancy is a longtime Swope supporter and member of its Board of Advisors, and is essentially the museum's 'co-executive director,' as he puts it. They've lived in the same Terre Haute house for 58 years. They raised a family of four children, who fittingly are all involved in community service — Todd as a Terre Haute city councilman, Tim as the Indianapolis Peace Learning Center, Tonya as a Terre Haute North High School math teacher and Indiana state representative, and Thad as owner of Nation Consulting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Nations also have 15 grandchildren.
Nation's duty as Swope executive director has put a 'capstone,' he said, on his long career of community and state oriented work.
The Schulte High School and Indiana State University grad started that path as a Terre Haute Star reporter in the 1960s, before serving as Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College's public relations director and vice president of development. Afterward, he took over the Saturday Spectator newspaper and 'took on the establishment,' reviving that longtime publication; worked for U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh's unsuccessful 1980 reelection campaign; joined Brian Miller's marketing and graphic design firm; agreed to guide Evan Bayh's successful 1988 campaign for Indiana governor, and then wound up leading Bayh's staff for the next eight years; and finally became executive VP for communications for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Racing, before retiring in late 2011.
That same year, Nation also ran for Terre Haute mayor, but incumbent Duke Bennett won that race. 'If I'd been elected, I'm not sure I'd still be alive,' Nation said. 'It's a very stressful job.'
A different job eventually arose, anyway. The Swope needed an interim leader in 2018 after museum executive director Susan Baley moved on to lead a Tulsa, Oklahoma, gallery. Nation's leadership background, and Nancy's years of volunteering with the Swope, made Fred a logical choice as interim executive director.
'More relevant now than ever'
Scott Sanders, an archivist from Antioch College (middle) shows Nancy and Fred Nation an original work by Terre Haute artist Gilbert Wilson that Sanders brought from Yellow Springs, Ohio, for a 'Moby-Dick' book release party at the Swope Art Museum in 2019.
In 2019, the Swope Board of Managers asked him to stay in that role, minus the 'interim' label.
'I liked the [job], said yes, and had no idea I'd still be here' at the Swope in 2025, Nation recalled. He became its first executive director without an art background.
He serves on a staff of five full-time museum employees, along with seven part-time staffers and a group of volunteers arranged by the Board of Advisors. Those volunteers include docents, who helped lead tours for fifth-graders from every Vigo County elementary school and other Wabash Valley schools.
The presence of youth is crucial for an art museum.
In fact, one of the most memorable images captured at the Swope in recent years, snapped in 2021 by Tribune-Star photographer Joseph C. Garza, featured Nation showing some of the museum's 2,500 artifacts from almost exclusively American artists to his 4-year-old grandson Theo.
Future generations loom large for museums' health. Many struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly all closing to the public through at least a portion of 2020. Data from the American Alliance of Museums shows that 19% of museums experienced a decrease in operating performance as a result of the pandemic, while 57% saw increases in activity, and 24% no change.
Nation steered the Swope through its pandemic years, and helped maintain the momentum of the capital fundraising campaign, which had restarted in 2019 after being paused in the wake of the 2008-09 recession.
Murray Pate, a longtime Board of Managers member, praised Nation's 'wisdom and insight' through the pandemic and renovation project. Nation's efforts will also benefit the next executive director, he said.
'What Fred is about, is making sure his successor is well-equipped,' Pate said Thursday.
The original script for the Swope's operations emerged from Sheldon Swope's will, penned in 1903, long before his death in 1929. Swope, a Union Army combat veteran from the Civil War and downtown jewelry store owner, had a progressive streak. His will called for the Swope to be governed by a three-member Board of Managers, and required at least one of the three to be a woman. He set that policy 17 years before American women received voting rights.
It's been a hub of arts progress ever since, through ups and downs over time.
Nation is confident the Swope's financial status and future are strong. He sees strength in his hometown, too.
'My sense is that our community is more open and welcoming than it's ever been,' Nation said. 'And that is going to be a real asset.'