Monday, July 5, 2021

Hickory Museum of Art with Photos and Videos

July 05, 2021 Posted By AdseRudita

Hickory Museum of Art (HMA) is an art museum in Hickory, North Carolina that holds exhibitions, events, and public educational programs based on a permanent collection of 19th through 21st century American art. The museum also features a long-term exhibition of Southern contemporary folk art, 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 when visionary founding Director, Paul Whitener, declared, “I am going to make Hickory, North Carolina an art center.” From that moment forward, the museum has left an indelible imprint on the Western Piedmont region by presenting a long history of exhibitions and programs that bring diverse groups of people together to learn about creativity. An accomplished landscape artist in his own right, Whitener fostered relationships with the National Academy of Design, which brought the very best in American art to his hometown.

From the very beginning, the Unifour Region has been a community of creative minds: entrepreneurs, innovators, and risk-takers. Those creative minds built furniture better than the world had ever seen. They made wagons that were sent worldwide and protected our military. They took revolutionary approaches to fighting the polio epidemic. They formed a community of people willing to dig in their heels and fight for one another. Those minds knew that survival depended on a network and collaboration - more than one plumber, woodworker, and doctor, but also with more than one painter, photographer and writer. Simply put, the arts were viewed as essential to the strength of the community. Though its forms have varied drastically, art has helped the creative minds of the Unifour Region build a community that has risen to nearly every challenge it has faced.

Hickory Museum of Art's visionary Founding Director, Paul Whitener was one of those creative minds. Faced with the challenge of bringing art to Hickory, Paul connected with artists in their various forms and started the museum we know today. This museum brings together people from all walks of life and inspires creativity in a way that launches this community forward as a leader in innovation and culture. Just like in our region's earlier days, we find ourselves surrounded by a community of creative minds. Creativity of any kind is what makes us human. It is what brings us together, it is what creates and drives change. Hickory Museum of Art continues on the pursuit of inspiration, imagination, and creativity. We keep meeting challenges head-on: to continue fostering important conversations, to continue being a catalyst for positive change, and to keep shaping our future, today and every day.

Hickory Museum of Art first earned national accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums in 1991. On in a meeting held October 6–8 2014, The American Alliance of Museums announced that Hickory Museum of Art was one nine museums who had earned re-accreditation by the Accreditation Commission. 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 then undergo a site visit by a two-person team of peers. The Accreditation Commission—a body of museum professionals appointed by the alliance Board—considers the self-study and site visit report to determine whether a museum should receive accreditation.

If not for a chance meeting in Little Switzerland, it's safe to say that Hickory Museum of Art would not exist as it's currently known today. Paul met Mildred "Mickey" Whitener Coe through an introduction by her cousin when he was working with the planners of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Little Switzerland NC where she lived. She was then taking painting lessons; and he became enchanted both with her and with learning to paint. They married in 1936 and moved to Hickory where she encouraged him to pursue his love of painting and further craft his skill with formal art instruction. In 1940, he met portrait painter Wilford S. Conrow at an art exhibition in Asheville, North Carolina, and asked the artist to take him on as a student. Conrow agreed, and would come to be influential in the development of Whitener's idea for a museum of American art in Hickory.

In the early 1940s, Hickory was a leading cultural center for a city of its size (about 15,000 inhabitants). As such, Paul Whitener felt the city needed a visual arts center. With the moral support of his wife Mickey, and funding from local industrialist A. Alex Shuford Jr., Whitener organized an art association in Hickory. A group of “conscientious citizens”, as Paul referred to them, assembled in September 1943 to discuss the possibility of organizing an art association in Hickory. By November of that year, though it did not yet have either a collection or a physical location, the Hickory Museum of Art Association borrowed some local art and held its first exhibition in the vacant Bradshaw office building in downtown Hickory, drawing about 600 viewers during the relatively brief run. In February 1944, still without either a building or a collection of its own, HMA held a celebratory ceremony in the ballroom of the Old Hickory Hotel where the museum was publicly recognized and chartered by North Carolina Governor Clyde Hoey. This was the official beginning of the second oldest art museum in North Carolina. (Charlotte's 1936 Mint Museum was the first.) Hickory Museum of Art was formally dedicated four months later, and Paul Whitener unanimously appointed Director.

Within a year of its founding, Hickory Museum of Art acquired a dozen paintings, had outgrown the Bradshaw Building, and moved into the white clapboard W.W. Bryan house on Third Avenue in Hickory, North Carolina. This was the Museum's home for the next 14 years. In 1960, HMA moved into its third home, the former office building of Shuford Mills on the corner of 3rd Street and 1st Avenue NW in downtown Hickory. “I thought it was heaven when I moved into that third location” remembered Mickey in 1994. “It was warm in the winter, cool in the summer and gorgeous year ‘round.” Here, HMA was able to further develop its programs including art classes that had already been initiated modestly before the move. The museum was also able to expand the continuing annual School Art Show, an early project of Paul's.

By the early 1980s, the museum again was in need of still-larger quarters, and to that end raised $650,000 towards building its own free-standing space. At that same time, the Hickory School Board announced that it intended to demolish the former Claremont High School building (by then renamed Hickory High School). Instead, Buck Shuford, part of the Shuford family whose members were strong supporters of Hickory Museum of Art since its beginnings, led a group of other civic-minded Hickory men and women to turn the building into the arts center it is today by spearheading a drive to raise 2.6 million dollars towards its renovation. In 1984, plans and funds were drawn to renovate Hickory's old Claremont High School. Two years later, The Arts and Science Center of Catawba Valley opened in the renovated building and provided a 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.

Now, 75 years later, the museum has evolved into an arts center featuring an extensive permanent collection of art objects across all mediums as well as a variety of education classes and events for all ages. Hickory Museum of Art represents and promotes our community as a center of innovative creativity and inclusivity through its commitment to visual arts, education, and collaboration. The focus of Hickory Museum of Art's collection continues to be American art. HMA aims to be a cultural center, educational resource, tourist destination, and economic development tool for the Catawba County region, the state of North Carolina, and beyond.

The result of an 18-month project, Hickory Museum of Art implemented their 2018-2023 Strategic Plan in June 2018. The plan itself is introduced by HMA's mission, vision, six core values, position, and unique story as an institution. The plan is then organized for day-to-day implementation and development measurements into four cross-departmental categories: Operational Health, Art, Community, and Financial Growth.