This transition was made possible through collaboration with the Junior League, local businesses, volunteers, and the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), resulting in the construction of the first permanent exhibition space in 1938.

In addition to exhibits of regional artists, a Blockbuster Series, initiated in 2003, has included Becoming a Nation, Art and Americana from the US Department of State and the iconic Mural by Jackson Pollock.

[1] It is one of four murals commissioned in 1927 by Omaha businessman Eugene Eppley for hotels in Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and Sioux City.

The mural was papered over in the early 1950s and forgotten until it was rediscovered in 1979 by Leah Hartman, an interviewer for the Siouxland Oral History Program.

Every year, the Sioux City Art Center offers approximately 100 classes for a range of ages from children to adults.

Planning for the Sioux City Art Center building itself began in 1991, culminating in the ground-breaking ceremony at 225 Nebraska Street on August 24, 1994.

Klinger, Inc. of Sioux City was the general contractor who physically created it and Hubert H. Everist oversaw the details of the entire process.

The museum that came from Margaret Ann Everist's vision contains 10,000 square feet (1,000 m2) of exhibition space, a 131-seat lecture hall, the Atrium Gift Gallery, the Junior League Hands On!

Gallery, progressively designed classrooms, a fully equipped darkroom and ceramics studio, and an environmentally controlled vault for the housing and preservation of the Art Center's permanent collection.

After almost twelve years of fund-raising, planning and construction, the new Sioux City Art Center welcomed its patrons and public into the 45,500-square-foot (4,230 m2) building on March 1, 1997.