History of the Greenville Museum of Art

Serving our community with arts and culture for over 80 years

From its origins in a modest downtown storefront in 1939 to its current location in the historic Flanagan House and 1991 West Wing addition, the Greenville Museum of Art (GMoA) has been a strong advocate for the role of the arts and culture in Eastern North Carolina for over 80 years.

The original impetus for the formation of the present GMoA was the first Women’s Club Arts Festival in 1935. Under the leadership of Rachel Maxwell Moore, the Women’s Club contacted the Federal Art Project in Raleigh, which authorized the establishment of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Gallery in downtown Greenville. When the WPA was terminated in 1943, leading to the closing of the WPA Gallery on Fifth and Cotanche Streets, space for the newly established Community Art Center was furnished by Sheppard Memorial Library with an exhibition area on the second floor and facilities for art classes in the library’s basement.

On January 5, 1955, a dinner was held to inaugurate the plan to establish extensive support for the arts in Eastern North Carolina. Dr. Robert Lee Humber addressed the group, and his enthusiasm stimulated considerable interest, and a decision was made to create a new, more widely representative organization with a fresh mandate - the East Carolina Art Society. The Society appointed a committee to locate a building to be used as the Greenville Art Center and on December 30, 1959, the Society purchased the Flanagan House at 802 South Evans Street. The house was converted into the Greenville Art Center, and the inaugural art exhibition, comprised of Old Master paintings loaned from various New York galleries, opened in May 1960. In 1963, the Rachel Maxwell Moore Art Foundation was established, and before Moore died in 1964, she bequeathed $24,000 to the Foundation for the sole purpose of purchasing works of art for the museum’s permanent collection. Her Foundation continues its strong support today, purchasing artwork each year for GMoA.

In 1981, the name of the Greenville Art Center was changed to the Greenville Museum of Art to reflect its status as an institution with a growing permanent collection of art objects. The GMoA received accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) in 1986, earning reaccreditation in 2000, 2012, and just recently in 2022. Over 7,000 square feet of space was added to create the West Wing of the building in 1991, and in 2011, the GMoA Center for Art Education was purchased and established next door to the museum. The Greenville Museum of Art Endowment was established in 2003 through the Community Foundation of NC East with a seed gift provided by June Ficklen, and significant gifts were received through her estate between 2016 and 2020.