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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

William and Florence Schmidt Art Center

art museum in Belleville, Illinois

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ8020723 ↗
Source-derived summary

Spanning 6500 square feet, the William and Florence Schmidt Art Center, located on the Belleville campus of Southwestern Illinois College, facilitates visual literacy through exhibitions of art and cultural artifacts while igniting inspiration, imparting knowledge, and fostering connections between the college and the local community.

Throughout the year, the Schmidt Art Center presents an array of exhibits featuring artwork created by established professionals and emerging artists from the metro area and beyond. The center also hosts cultural events, collaborating with professional artists, poets, and musicians. With a collection of over nine hundred works, the Schmidt Art Center holds the most extensive art collection of any two-year college in Illinois, encompassing paintings, photographs, sculptures, and artifacts.

The collection was mostly acquired through private donations and funds from the Illinois Art in Architecture program.

Owned by Southwestern Illinois College, The Schmidt operates under its Foundation and may be rented for private events.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William and Florence Schmidt Art Center” as art museum in Belleville, Illinois. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current 150-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2001. The account is most persuasive where William, Florence and Schmidt can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as art museum in Belleville, Illinois. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8020723. Authority coordinates are 38.517, -89.922. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William and Florence Schmidt Art Center”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William and Florence Schmidt Art Center primary sources, William and Florence Schmidt Art Center archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William and Florence Schmidt Art Center”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William and Florence Schmidt Art Center” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.