The museum also features a long-term exhibition of Southern contemporary folk art, showcasing the work of self-taught artists from around the region.
In February 1944 North Carolina Governor Clyde Hoey officially recognized and chartered the Association at a ceremony in the ballroom of the Old Hickory Hotel.
Two years later the renovated building opened as the Arts & Science Center of Catawba Valley, providing a new permanent location for the Museum.
[7] Industrialist A. Alex Shuford Jr. volunteered the funds for the first purchase of a painting in March 1944, for $140: Burke Mountain, Vermont, by National Academy of Design officer Frederick Ballard Williams.
Whitener, using his artistic contacts in New York City, among whom were the painters Wilford Conrow and Henry Hobart Nichols, concentrated on acquiring affordable American art.
A number of New York artists, including Whitener's friend Conrow, spent summers in the mountains of North Carolina and took an interest in the museum, with some donating their work.
In 1954, the museum acquired a group of important works from the collection of National Academy of Design president Hobart Nichols including pieces by Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Durand, John Frederick Kensett, Worthington Whittredge, Edward Henry Potthast, and Robert Lewis Reid.