OMAA houses a permanent collection of over 3,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs spanning from the late 1800s to the present.

[2] Artist and collector Henry Strater purchased land in Ogunquit formerly owned by Charles Herbert Woodbury who is widely credited with founding the art colony in the village.

[3] Initially founded by Strater as The Museum of Art of Ogunquit, the institution was incorporated on September 18, 1951, with a mission for “the broad educational interests of the public.” Architect Charles Worley of Boston designed the museum to realize the full potential of the site on the coast.

The first exhibition included 121 works by modern artists Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Stuart Davis, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Peggy Bacon, Walt Kuhn, Frances Lamont, Hamilton Easter Field, and William von Schlegel, and was supported with the loan of important works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Downtown Gallery.

In the ensuing decades, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art has organized important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art by Edward Hopper,[5] Andrew Wyeth, Jamie Wyeth,[6] Dahlov Ipcar.,[7] Anthony Cudahy,[8] Lee Krasner[9], and Philip Koch.