North Carolina State Art Society Gallery

The North Carolina State Art Society was founded in the early twentieth century in Raleigh, North Carolina, to promote the visual arts in the state and to build a public art collection. Its advocacy helped lead to a state appropriation for the purchase of art, an unusual step that laid the foundation for a public collection.

The society's efforts culminated in the establishment of the North Carolina Museum of Art, which opened to the public in 1956 and continues to hold and display the collection that grew out of these early initiatives.