our position

Hickory Museum of Art represents and promotes the Unifour region (Catawba, Caldwell, Burke, and Alexander Counties) as a center of innovative creativity and inclusive community through its commitment to visual arts, education, and collaboration.

our story

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.

our collection

Hickory Museum of Art was founded in 1944 to collect, foster and preserve American art. 8 works were collected that year, and today, 75+ years later, the Museum now has approximately 1,500 art objects in the Collection. Major holding categories include:

• Hudson River School Paintings

• Southern Contemporary Folk Art

• North Carolina Artists

• American Art Pottery

• Studio Art Glass

• High-Speed Photography