Hickory Museum of Art (HMA) is an art museum in

Hickory, North Carolina Hickory is a city located primarily in Catawba County, with formal boundaries extending into Burke and Caldwell counties. The city lies in the U.S. state of North Carolina. At the time of the 2020 census, Hickory's population was 43,490. Hickor ...

which holds exhibitions, events, and public educational programs based on a permanent collection of 19th to 21st century

American art Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...

. The museum also features a long-term exhibition of Southern contemporary

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

, showcasing the work of self-taught artists from around the region. North Carolina's second-oldest museum, Hickory Museum of Art was established in 1944. Perryman,

National Accreditation

Hickory Museum of Art first earned national accreditation from the

American Alliance of Museums American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

in 1991.Chronology of The Hickory Museum of Art. Hickory, NC: Hickory Museum of Art, 2 June 2005. Following a meeting held October 6–8, 2014, The American Alliance of Museums announced that Hickory Museum of Art was one of nine museums which had earned re-accreditation. Accredited status from the Alliance is the highest national recognition achievable by an American museum. Of the nation's estimated 35,000 museums, 1,033 are currently accredited. To earn accreditation a museum first must conduct a year of self-study, and is then visited by a two-person inspection team reporting to the Accreditation Commission — a body of museum professionals appointed by the A.A.M. board.

History

In the early 1940s, Hickory, then a city of c. 15,000 inhabitants, was a leading regional cultural center. Founding Director Paul Whitener felt the city needed a visual arts center. With funding from local industrialist A. Alex Shuford Jr., Whitener organized a committee of citizens in September 1943 to discuss organizing an art association. In November of that year, though it did not yet have either a collection or a physical location, the Hickory Museum of Art Association held its first exhibition, of art borrowed locally, in the vacant Bradshaw office building in downtown Hickory, attracting about 600 viewers. In February 1944 North Carolina Governor Clyde Hoey officially recognized and chartered the Association at a ceremony in the ballroom of the Old Hickory Hotel. (Charlotte's 1936 Mint Museum was the first.) Hickory Museum of Art was formally dedicated four months later, and Paul Whitener unanimously appointed Director.

Location

Within a year of its founding the Museum of Art had acquired a dozen paintings and moved into the white clapboard W.W. Bryan house on Hickory's Third Avenue, its home for the next 14 years. From 1960 the museum occupied the former office building of Shuford Mills on the corner of 3rd Street and 1st Avenue NW. Here it was able to further develop its programs, including the art classes that had been initiated at the Third Avenue premises, and to expand its long-standing annual School Art Show. By 1984 the museum was again in need of larger quarters, and to that end had raised $650,000. Buck Shuford, of the Shuford family which has been supporters of the museum since its beginnings, led a campaign to turn the redundant Hickory High School building (formerly Claremont High School) into an arts center, spearheading a drive that raised $2.6m toward its acquisition and conversion. Two years later the renovated building opened as the Arts & Science Center of Catawba Valley, providing a new permanent location for the Museum. Today, it has been incorporated into the SALT Block, a cultural arts complex that houses the Catawba Science Center, Hickory Choral Society, Hickory Museum of Art, Patrick Beaver Library, United Arts Council, and Western Piedmont Symphony.

Permanent Collection

Industrialist A. Alex Shuford Jr. volunteered the funds for the first purchase of a painting in March 1944, for $140: ''Burke Mountain, Vermont'', by

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

officer

Frederick Ballard Williams Frederick Ballard Williams (1871- 1956) was an American landscape and figure painter. He is best known for his decorative and idyllic scenes of the New England landscape. As a member of the National Academy, Salmagundi Club president, and founde ...

. The collection grew rapidly over the following years. Whitener, using his artistic contacts in New York City, among whom were the painters

Wilford Conrow Wilford Seymour Conrow (1880-1957) was an American artist, most noted for portrait painting. He married Lyra Millette. Early life Wildford Conrow was born in South Orange, New Jersey on June 14, 1880. He studied business at the Polytechnic Instit ...

and Henry Hobart Nichols, concentrated on acquiring affordable American art. A number of New York artists, including Whitener's friend Conrow, spent summers in the mountains of North Carolina and took an interest in the museum, with some donating their work. In 1954, the museum acquired a group of important works from the collection of National Academy of Design president Hobart Nichols including pieces by

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintin ...

Asher Brown Durand Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. Early life Durand was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eight ...

John Frederick Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...

Worthington Whittredge Thomas Worthington Whittredge (May 22, 1820 – February 25, 1910) was an American artist of the Hudson River School. Whittredge was a highly regarded artist of his time, and was friends with several leading Hudson River School artists including ...

Edward Henry Potthast Edward Henry Potthast (June 10, 1857 – March 9, 1927) was an American Impressionist painter. He is known for his paintings of people at leisure in Central Park, and on the beaches of New York and New England. Life and work Edward Henry Pottha ...

, and

Robert Lewis Reid Robert Lewis Reid (July 29, 1862 – December 2, 1929) was an American Impressionist painter and muralist. His work tended to be very decorative, much of it centered on depiction of young women set among flowers. He later became known for h ...

. Today, the museum's permanent collection includes approximately 1,500 art objects, ranging from

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, ...

paintings,

American art pottery American art pottery (sometimes capitalized) refers to aesthetically distinctive hand-made ceramics in earthenware and stoneware from the period 1870-1950s. Ranging from tall vases to tiles, the work features original designs, simplified shapes, an ...

, Glass Art, High-Speed Photography, and the work of regional artists."Our Collection." Hickory Museum of Art. Hickory Museum of Art, 2014. Web. 14 July 2014. Whitener's atated aim was that the museum should "embrace all the arts and crafts of the upper Piedmont region of North Carolina." and it also recognizes the folk artistic traditions (also known as "Outsider Art") of the Southern United States, North Carolina, and the Catawba Valley region in a long-term folk art exhibition to which the third floor of the building is dedicated. In 2004, the museum acquired more than 150 contemporary Southern folk art objects from the collection of Hickory residents Allen and Barry Huffman.Swensson, Lisë. "Preface." Preface. Homegrown & Handmade: Exhibition Catalogue. Hickory, NC: Hickory Museum of Art, 2005. 3. Print. This was the largest collection ever received by the museum, and has expanded considerably in subsequent years. The artists represented, integral to the region's social history, are typically self-taught and removed from the mainstream art world. They include James Harold Jennings, Richard Burnside, Miles Carpenter, Raymond Coins, Abraham Lincoln Criss, Minnie Adkins,

Howard Finster Howard Finster (December 2, 1916 – October 22, 2001) was an American artist and Baptist minister from Georgia. He claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the design of his swampy land into Paradise Garden, a folk art scul ...

, Russell Gillespie, and Minnie Reinhardt. Traditional

Catawba Valley Pottery Catawba Valley Pottery describes alkaline glazed stoneware made in the Catawba River Valley of Western North Carolina from the early 19th century, as well as certain contemporary pottery made in the region utilizing traditional methods and forms. ...

, including a number of iconic "face jugs", is also represented.

References

External links

Official WebsiteHMA on FacebookUnited Arts Council of Catawba CountyLake Norman Folk Art Festival
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Art museums and galleries in North Carolina North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east ...

Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums of American art 1944 establishments in North Carolina Art museums established in 1944 Museums in Catawba County, North Carolina