Visitor Information
Location: 415 Academy Drive (off West Main Street or Russell Road) in Abingdon, Virginia.
Directions: From Interstate 81: Exit 17 to Cummings Street, left onto West Main Street, right onto Academy Drive just past Abingdon Police Station. Highway directional signs mark this route. From Highway 19: Left onto Russell Road, right onto Academy Drive.
Admission:
$5 for Adults • $3 for Seniors
Students and William King Museum members free
*suggested donation
Hours:
10-9 Tuesday; 10-5 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; 1-5 Sunday
Closed Monday and some holidays
Parking: Free parking is available at the side the back of the Museum. Additional free parking is available in a nearby public parking lot located within easy walking distance. Look for signs.
Accessible Entrance: Located at the rear of the building. From the front, turn left into the alley between the museum and the county office building; parking spaces are located behind and beside the museum. An elevator is located midway down the hall on Level One. Wheelchairs are available for use; inquire at the information desk on Level Two.
Information Desk: Located on Level Two. Direct questions to the volunteer on duty or to any member of the Museum staff.
Group Tours: Guided tours are available. Call 276-628-5005 for group tour pricing.
About the Museum
William King Museum is the only facility of its kind serving far Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Located in Abingdon, this non-profit regional art museum and arts education center is Virginia's only nationally-accredited museum west of Roanoke.
The Museum, a partner of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is housed in an historic 1913 former school, and is aptly named for William King, an early philanthropist who donated the land for the first school built on this site.
The organization traces its origins to a group of civic-minded individuals who, in 1979, sought to both create a community Museum and save an abandoned building. More than a decade later, the Museum redefined its service area as regional and successfully completed three renovations that resulted in the region's first art museum.
An excellent example of both community involvement and adaptive reuse, this once vacant and deteriorating facility now features museum-standard galleries which showcase the region's cultural heritage within the context of world cultures and artistic trends today.
Rotating exhibitions run the gamut from art of the world - past exhibitions have featured African art, Egyptian antiquities and pre-Columbian artifacts, to name only a few - to exhibitions which showcase the region's decorative arts legacy or best new contemporary artists. Many exhibitions, which change about every three months, are organized by Museum staff. Related programming, developed specific to each exhibition, include docent-led tours, artist talks, lectures and symposia.
An extensive arts education program serves both school and public audiences. ArtExpress, the core in-house school program, provides a first museum visit for many of the region's children, and VanGogh Outreach places arts educators directly in classrooms of 14 Southwest Virginia school districts. Both programs were developed in response to the lack of arts education at the elementary level and are providing SOL-based curriculum enrichment in service to the region's schools.
For adults, core instruction is available in clay, photography and watercolor, a program augmented by special offerings which range from oil painting to life drawing to banjo - and much in between! Educational facilities on-site include a fully equipped clay studio, black & white darkroom, printmaking studio and numerous multi-purpose classrooms. These facilities are also used in the Museum's in-house school programs throughout the academic year, and in after-school or weekend offerings for youngsters ages pre-K through 12.
The Museum also features resident artist studios, enabling visitors to both meet working artists and see art in process, as well as a museum store and outdoor sculpture garden.
The Museum's Cultural Heritage Project, begun in 1994, seeks to develop a full and accurate appreciation of the decorative arts legacy of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. The project has documented more than 2,000 objects made by hand in the region between 1780 and 1940, everything from pottery to furniture to textiles, from metals to toys to musical instruments, and those records are maintained at the Museum as a resource for researchers interested in the region's material culture. Thirteen original exhibitions have now been mounted from this record, and a book is forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press.
As an outgrowth of this ambitious project, the Museum also manages the Fields-Penn 1860 House Museum, an historic house museum owned by the Town of Abingdon. The Museum's permanent collection of regional decorative and folk arts is housed here, where docent-led tours enable visitors to step back in time to pre-Civil War Virginia.
History
William King came to America from Ireland in 1784 and completed an apprenticeship in Philadelphia before continuing westward to Virginia's frontier and settling in Washington County. He made a fortune in the salt business and other enterprises and was worth one million dollars when he died at the age of 39 in 1808.
King's will included a gift of $10,000 or "lands to that amount" to the Abingdon Male Academy, on whose board he served. The Academy needed new quarters, and his legacy was used for this purpose, locating the Academy on the tract that is today the Arts Center's property.
The Abingdon Male Academy built their school building at the top of this site, comprised of approximately 25 acres in 1824. By 1830, enrollment was over forty students. During the Civil War, troops were billeted in the school. The war took its toll on the building, and in 1872 a new brick school building was erected.
In c. 1905, the Abingdon Academy closed its doors, and in 1912, its trustees leased the property to the Town of Abingdon and the Central School District of Washington County. The school board constructed a new brick school building in 1913 on the site, using the same footprint of the Academy building. The new public school was named William King High School, so that people "may know that William King's memory still lives in the hearts of the people of Abingdon." This is the building that now serves as the museum facility.
The 1913 building was used as a public school until 1973. It remained empty until William King Regional Arts Center was organized in 1979 to renovate it as an arts center. Piecemeal renovations proceeded until 1990, when the legacy trustees of the Abingdon Male Academy gifted the property and all its buildings, subject to existing leases, to William King Regional Arts Center. The Arts Center closed its doors for a major renovation project in 1990 and reopened as a museum in 1992. The museum was accredited in 2004 and changed its name to William King Museum in 2009.
Programs
Exhibitions: An average of 9 exhibitions are mounted each year, showcasing art of the region and of the world. Related programming includes lectures, workshops, receptions and symposia. Most events are offered free of charge.
Arts Education: Classes are offered year-round for both children and adults, and summer art camps are offered each year for ages 4 and up. From basic instruction in drawing, photography, clay or watercolor to more advanced explorations in a variety of media, Museum classes are available for a variety of interests and skill levels. Contact the Education Department for a current schedule.
For school audiences, programs are also available both on-site at the Abingdon museum and directly in the schools through our outreach program. Contact the Education Department to inquire about bookings.
© 2010 William King Museum