Mission of the
Spartanburg Art Museum

Contemporary Art

Spartanburg Art Museum’s mission is to advance contemporary visual arts by inspiring and engaging diverse audiences through exhibitions and education.

We celebrate pluralism, a quality inherent within contemporary art.

Spartanburg Art Museum is dedicated to making art accessible to all people in our community and beyond.

We strive to present exhibitions, programs, and educational offerings that reflect the broad expanse of what diversity looks like, which is to say the inclusion of national origin, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, disability, socio-economic backgrounds, and levels of education.

Historic Land of the Cherokee Tribe

Spartanburg Art Museum would like to acknowledge that our Museum is located on the traditional land and territory of the Cherokee people both past and present.

The Cherokee Tribe was one of many in South Carolina displaced by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Approximately 1000 Cherokee escaped the Trail of Tears by hiding, eventually becoming the modern Eastern Band of Cherokees located in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Spartanburg Art Museum is dedicated to making art accessible to all people in our community and beyond. We celebrate pluralism, a quality inherent within contemporary art. We strive to present exhibitions, programs, and educational offerings that reflect the broad expanse of what diversity looks like, which is to say the inclusion of national origin, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, disability, socio-economic backgrounds, and levels of education.

The mission of the Spartanburg Art Museum is to advance contemporary visual arts by inspiring and engaging diverse audiences through exhibitions and education.  As important to this mission as assembling varied exhibitions of the highest-quality contemporary and historic art in the Museum’s gallery spaces, is collecting individual works or groups of work representative of such trends.  While preserving such works for future generations, the Museum also endeavors to make them available to current ones in ways that advance its stated mission. 

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As of 2021, the Spartanburg Art Museum’s Permanent Collection consists of over 1100 objects, including drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, rare books, and other artifacts.


The Museum’s Board of Directors, staff, and volunteers are committed to championing policies and best practices that value diversity, foster equity, and empower an accessible and inclusive environment across SAM’s programs and events. Our DEA&I Committee is working on the following goals for this fiscal year and beyond:


Access: help the community understand that SAM is their resource, a free institution providing the public with physical and intellectual access to its exhibitions and programs


Equity: help eliminate any perceived barriers from the public that prevent the participation of all people and communities

​Inclusion: help SAM develop and cultivate an environment where people feel supported, listened to, and valued
 

Diversity: help cultivate more diverse relationships through exhibitions, programs with community partnerships, donors, corporate sponsors, Art School students and visitors

125 years and counting

SAM's History

Spartanburg Art Museum's mission is to advance contemporary visual arts by inspiring and engaging diverse audiences through exhibitions and education.

  • 1907

    The Girl with Red Hair

    Josephine Sibley Couper and Margaret Law, two prominent local artists, brought an exhibition of that era's contemporary art to Spartanburg. Featured in that exhibition was The Girl with Red Hair (1903) by Robert Henri, a well-known Ashcan School painter. Couper and Law sold 10 and 25 cent raffle tickets to Spartanburg citizens to raise the $500 to purchase Henri's painting. They were successful, and The Girl with Red Hair became the flagship piece of what would eventually become the Spartanburg Art Museum's Permanent Collection.

  • 1923

    Spartanburg Arts & Crafts Club Founded

    It is unclear when Josephine Sibley Couper and Margaret Law founded the Spartanburg Arts and Crafts Club. Our earliest record of the Club is a handmade meeting pamphlet dated 1923.

  • 1968

    Spartanburg County Art Association

    The Spartanburg County Art Association was formed by Nita Milliken and nine other community leaders. The SCAA opened a gallery, started the tradition of the Sidewalk Art Show, and began collecting works by local and regional artists.

  • 1977

    Spartanburg Arts Council

    Stewardship of the original collection of the Spartanburg Arts and Crafts Club—approximately 150 pieces of art—was granted to the Spartanburg Arts Council.

  • 1994

    Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg

    The Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg was formed, and was granted stewardship of the Spartanburg Arts Council collection. TAPS gave the SAC collection to the care of the Spartanburg County Art Association, bringing the combined collection up to approximately 250 pieces of art.

  • 2007

    Spartanburg Art Museum

    The Spartanburg County Museum of Art moved its location from Spring Street to its new home in the Chapman Cultural Center, thus becoming the Spartanburg Art Museum.

  • 2015

    Reflecting the Original Mission

    Spartanburg Art Museum, under the leadership of Elizabeth Goddard, shifted its mission to reflect the original ideal of exhibiting the art of the current era, supporting living and working contemporary artists.

    ​SAM's exhibition calendar boasts a diverse range of contemporary exhibitions and offers a wide variety of educational and community programs for all ages and demographics.