Right on Pack Square sits the Asheville Art Museum, a nonprofit accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Right here on the center square of downtown Asheville, at 2 South Pack Square at Pack Place, the museum stages exhibitions and public programs drawn from its permanent collection of 20th and 21st century American art. You’ll find regional and national voices in the galleries, and special exhibitions that highlight work important to Western North Carolina’s cultural heritage — from Studio Craft to objects connected to Black Mountain College and to Cherokee artists.
The museum also offers educational programs for children and adults, so this is a living place of learning as well as display. Its story began when it was incorporated in 1948, in a modest three-room building on Charlotte Street that had once been the land sales office of E.W. Grove, the developer of the Grove Park Inn. By 1950 the museum began acquiring a permanent collection, later moving to donated space on the 15th floor of the Northwestern Bank Building, now the Arras Building, and eventually purchasing property at 152 Pearson Drive.
Outside the doors, 2 South Pack Square opens straight onto the bustle of downtown Asheville.