Asheville Art Museum - History

History

Incorporated in 1948, the Asheville Art Museum celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2008. The original home was a three-room building on Charlotte Street, once the land sales office of E.W. Grove, developer of the Grove Park Inn. By 1950, the Museum had become an established part of the city’s cultural life, and it began acquiring a permanent collection. Quickly, the collection outgrew its home, and the Museum moved to donated space on the 15th floor of the Northwest Bank, now the BB&T building. Forced to move in 1970, the Museum purchased property in the Montford Area Historic District of Asheville. A first full-time Director was hired, and exhibitions became more regional in scope. Programming and attendance expanded, but the aging 40-year-old building presented problems. When plans for the Asheville Civic Center were announced in 1972, the Museum Board accepted an invitation to be one of the three cultural agencies in the center. In 1976, the Museum opened a 9,000-square-foot (840 m2) facility in the Civic Center. In 1984, the Asheville Art Museum became one of few of its size to be accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

In 1992, the Museum opened in a 1925 Italian Renaissance style building with contemporary additions that was once a library. That facility includes 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of space at Pack Place in the heart of downtown Asheville. A modest capital expansion, completed in 1999, added space from Pack Place and the adjacent Legal Building, creating new classroom and studio facilities, an art library, a teacher resource center, a community gallery and a new entrance. The Museum now occupies 24,400 square feet (2,270 m2) of space.