The Women behind Hickory Museum of Art
On March 3, 2024 at a small gathering at HMA, the museum celebrated with the video’s contributors and their families the first showing of The Women Behind HMA documentary . A mock-up of the fabled then- brand-new 1954 Dodge station-wagon served as a photo setting for partying groups including some of the memory contributors and a group from Laura Lee Wilfong’s extended family.
The video is also available in the Whitener Gallery through June 9, 2024 during the museum’s Foundations rotating exhibit from our entire collection which has grown to over 2,700 works through those 80 years.
A Foundation of Memories 80 years in the making.
In late 2023, a group of women who have continued their involvement with the museum into the present shared in front of a film camera some fond memories of Josephine Bonniwell Lyerly, Mickey Whitener Coe and Laura Lee Wilfong, three of the women whose unwavering and multifaceted support assured ongoing success from the very beginning of Paul Whitener’s vision of an art museum for Hickory.
However, the photo that fronts the video is of a different group of the many many women whose support of all kinds over the years has been crucial for making the museum what it is today.
Filmed by Calvin Reyes