The league was founded in 1943 by a group of artists meeting weekly at the studio of Robert Stapp who decided to form a working group of painters to foster and stimulate fine arts and crafts in the Sabine area.

It continued to hold annual membership exhibitions, traveling exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and summer art colonies taught by such accomplished national artists as Frederic Taubes and Jacob Getlar Smith.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the league moved several times while the museum remained at the Brown Gallery.

The museum expanded several times into other local buildings until finding its home in downtown Beaumont in 1987.

In 1962, the league held the first Tri-State Exhibition, bringing in art from around Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi.