University-Based Art Galleries

When the natural beauty of North Carolina started to get boring and you were already starting to transport yourself in the world of inspiration and imagination, then its time for you to sit back and relax while you enjoy the best collection of art pieces in some of North Carolina’s art museums. There are more than a hundred of them in the state, and you may find the following list too condensed, but definitely you’d be able to find these mostly recommended venues the best in the land. A lot of these are based in universities. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has four art museums inside its campus: the Ackland Art Museum, John and Kune Alcott Gallery, Carolina Union Activities Board, and North Carolina Collection Gallery. These four museums offer the best place for students and practitioners who want to explore more possibilities of art. Ackland instructs their students to be experimental, transforming the classroom into a more innovative place of learning art. The museum has more than 15,000 works of art under its name and more than a dozen exhibitions being organized in a year, whether it is special and traveling, and ranges from paintings, photography and video installations. The North Carolina Collection, on the other hand, is located in the Wilson Library where visitors can search through literary scrapbooks, newspapers, microfilms, numismatics and a number of collections that reflect the history of the state.

The Carolina Union Activities Board was established to provide quality programming which includes films, arts, music and other forms of educational and cultural entertainment inside the university community. The organization also includes live art, performing arts, comedy, art galley and cabaret on its roster of entertainment. John and June Alcott Gallery is located at the Hanes Art Center where the UNC Department of Art is housed. Duke University has three art museums housed in its own campus: Nasher Museum of Art, Center for Documentary Studies and the Touchable Art Gallery. The Nasher Museum of Art offers exhibitions, research publications and programs that help in the development of visual arts to the community. The present museum was opened to the public in 2005 was founded by Raymond D. Nasher, but it was formerly known as the Duke University Museum of Art when it was founded in 1969.

Some of its permanent collection includes “The Past is the Present” featuring sixty works of arts that include vase painting, bronze and gold jewelry from the ancient Mediterranean world, ranging in date from 2800 BCE to 300 CE and “Side Steppin'” a branch sculpture collection by Patrick Dougherty displayed outside the museum main entrance. The Touchable Art Gallery is a museum located at the Duke Eye Center, which was established to give its patients the enjoyment of looking at visual arts. A significant number in the collection are works made by visually impaired artists. The Center for Documentary Studies gather art practitioners to capture contemporary memory, life and culture using film, video, audio photography and narrative writing. Some of its exhibits include Literacy through Photography and Youth Document Durham. Other university-based art galleries are Diggs Gallery at the Winston-Salem University, Catherine Smith Gallery and Appalachian Cultural Museum at the Appalachian State University and Scales Fine Arts Center at Wake Forest University.