Since 1914, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum has anchored the Provincetown arts community, serving as both a collecting museum and a professional artists' association. PAAM houses five galleries, two sculpture gardens, and an accredited Museum School run by professional artists, making it the most dynamic contemporary cultural center on Cape Cod. With over 100 year-round programs including a concert series, a film series, auctions, galas, readings, lectures, and the ever-popular Friday night exhibition openings, PAAM maintains its commitment to the Outer Cape community by providing quality educational and cultural programming.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) was established in 1914 by prominent artists Charles Hawthorne, Oscar Gieberich, William Halsall, Gerrit Beneker, E. Ambrose Webster and several local business men and women. The donation of works by the organizing artists, and two juried exhibitions mounted in the summer of 1915, began PAAM’s traditions of collecting and exhibiting the work of the local community of artists. By then, the art community at the tip of Cape Cod had become the refuge of artists and expatriates returned from war-torn Europe, and Provincetown was firmly established as "The Biggest Art Colony in the World."