AURORA | Don’t let John Madden Jr.’s folksy Nebraska drawl fool you; this guy is an expert on fine art from across the world.
That much is obvious as he walks through the 6,000-square-foot gallery in Greenwood Village that bears his name. The Madden Museum of Art features more than 80 pieces from an international cast of artists and takes up a good chunk of the bottom floor of the $55.8-million Palazzo Verdi office tower near Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater. Madden can go into detail about the Italian modernists, the American pop artists and the contemporary Colorado painters who’ve contributed to the impressive collection here.
He’s likely to do just that for any patron he meets wandering around the gallery.
“Whether you spend a half an hour or whether you spend five minutes here, you get a feeling that this is pleasant spot,” Madden said recently as he sat in front of a massive reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s “La Primavera” by Italian artist Emilio Martelli. He’d just led a group of patrons visiting from Missouri on a tour through one of the gallery’s smaller halls, a space that features a small canvas by English painter J.M.W. Turner. That kind of touch that would be hard to find at a larger, formal art museum, Madden insists. “It’s personal,” he said.
It’s no accident that Madden has that kind of liberty and access here. He earned his fortune as a developer. The John Madden Company built the Palazzo Building, as well as countless other high-profile projects around the state and the country.
But when Madden, 84, wanders around his namesake gallery, it’s clear that he’s an art lover first and a developer second.
“One of the jobs I had going to school was working at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha,” Madden said. “I took a big interest in art and had a hell of a lot of fun. My father’s hobby was oil painting, and there were people are the house on weekends doing paintings. I grew up in that environment.”
That childhood access to the arts stuck with Madden as he built a successful career as a developer. It drove the creation of the Museum of Outdoor Arts in 1981, a nearby installation he has since handed over to his daughter Cynthia Madden Leitner. That early interest in the arts was a driver behind the creation 6,000-square-foot gallery in a building that also features an inlaid replica of the labyrinth from the Chatres Cathedral in France, as well as a massive antique Italian chandelier in its foyer.
Though the gallery doubles as a rentable space for special events, such monumental pieces are impossible to escape. They remain at the heart of the museum’s mission.
“The artwork here is almost incidental to what we’re trying to accomplish,” Madden said. “You walk in through a fabulous lobby done by artisans … In this area of office buildings, it brings a little bit of culture.”
Many of the massive tableaus and monumental sculptures are from the personal collection of Madden and his wife, Marjorie. Admission is free for the gallery set up in the same building that hosts the corporate headquarters of the Newmont Mining Company and Ciber Inc. But the gallery also hosts school groups from the Denver Public Schools district, and they’ve started to reach out to Aurora Public Schools as well.
“When a lot of people from upstairs or the surrounding office buildings come to visit the museum, they’re here to take a break and rejuvenate,” said Hillary Reed-Klemme, museum director. “There’s an emotional connection when you walk into this building. When you walk into those bigger institutions, you’re just there for the show.
“This is more than that,” she added.
The space features an eclectic collection of paintings, sculpture and photographs. Massive canvases by modern Italian painters like Luigi Gioli and Valentino Ghiglia dominate one wall; a bronze sculpture of President Abraham Lincoln by American artist Daniel Chester French takes up another corner. A massive iron sculpture transported from Mexico dominates one wall; a large-scale piece of abstract art by American Robert Rauschenberg takes up another.
Madden’s role as a developer isn’t entirely absent as he tours the space and points to future additions. Tentative plans for a nearby project that would echo the design of the Piazza del Campidoglio by Renaissance artist Michaelangelo would ultimately be a home for high-profile corporate offices.
But Madden’s love for the world of fine art underlies even his most ambitious plans for development. It’s part of what sets this small space apart from similar galleries in Denver.
“Because it’s smaller and it’s just one collection, it’s more intimate,” Reed-Klemme said. “It puts me in touch with local artists. If I worked at a larger museum, you would have to go through so many different
avenues.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com