Canton Museum of Art (Ohio)

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The Canton Museum of Art, founded in 1935, is a community arts organization designed to encourage and promote the fine arts in Canton, Ohio.

The museum’s objective is “to provide a permanent museum for the collecting and preservation of art objects.” Operating under this broad mandate, the museum began to purchase the work of local and regional artists. Much of the museum's collections are dedicated to the work of local and regional artists in the Canton area. Gifts from local patrons and corporate benefactors from their personal art collections are also included in the museum's holdings.

The museum focuses on exposing the public to art and documenting local history. The purchases of works by local artists and the acceptance of donations were the two major influences on the development of the permanent collection until the museum moved into the Cultural Center for the Arts in 1970. At that time, the museum’s board decided that the permanent collection should be focused on a more specific collecting area. The Ralph L. Wilson Collection of American Art, gifted in the 1970s, was a significant step toward the eventual focus on 19th and 20th-century American artists.