Albany, Georgia
Art
The Albany Museum of Art (AMA) was originally incorporated by the State of Georgia in 1964 as the Southwest Georgia Art Association as a volunteer community group. The non-profit association was housed in a defunct hosiery mill and established a program of exhibitions, lectures and art classes. In 1969, through the generosity of W. Banks Haley, Jr., the association constructed a 5,000 square-foot facility on a small city park. Its first professional staff members were hired in 1975. Exhibitions were drawn from collections of the following organizations; SITES (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service), IBM, Coca-Cola, Gulf States Paper and the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia.