Provencetown Art Association. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.It was founded as the Provincetown Art Association on August 22, 1914, with the mission of collecting, preserving, exhibiting and educating people about the work of Cape Cod artists. These included Impressionists, Modernists, and Futurists as well as artists working in more traditional styles. The original building at 460 Commercial Street, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The organization changed its name to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in 1970. As a professional association, it represents a membership of around 700 contemporary artists.Its growing permanent collection includes over 4,000 works. The museum mounts multiple exhibitions per year. Hawthorne teaches a plein air class The Provincetown Art Colony is the oldest of the nineteenth-century summer art colonies on the East Coast. The first art school there was established in 1899 by Charles Hawthorne. On August 22, 1914, a group of prominent artists along with local business men and women established the Provincetown Art Association. The founding officers included President William H. Young; Vice Presidents Charles Hawthorne, William Halsall and E. Ambrose Webster; Acting Vice President Mrs. Eugene Watson; Treasurer Mrs. William H. Young; Recording Secretary Nina S. Williams and Corresponding Secretary Moses N. Gifford. Other artists involved included Gerrit Beneker, Oliver Newberry Chaffee, Edwin Dickinson, Oscar Gieberich, Frank H. Desch, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Kenneth Stubbs. Mary Bacon Jones, Catharine Carter Critcher, Sarah Sewell Munroe and Margery Ryerson. For the first two years, the Association met monthly at members' homes or at the home of its first President, William H. Young, who was President of the local Seamen's Savings Bank. As lectures were included, the meetings moved to the Church of the Pilgrims near Town Hall. The organizing artists mounted two juried exhibitions in the summer of 1915 at the Provincetown Town Hall. Beneker, Gieberich, Halsall, Hawthorne and Webster donated works to the nascent collection, beginning a tradition of collecting and exhibiting the work of local artists. By this time, Provincetown had become a refuge of artists and expatriates returned from war-torn Europe. In 1916, the town was hailed as The Biggest Art Colony in the World, known for its innovative Impressionist and Futurist artists emphasizing color and light. Influential schools of the time were led by Hawthorne, George Elmer Browne and E. Ambrose Webster. A fourth Modernist school was led by Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, William Zorach and Marguerite Zorach. A school of etchers, led by George Senseney, was also active. While some artists lived in the Cape year-round, others flocked to Provincetown in the summers. The Association's first director was Harry N. Campbell. He was followed by E. Ambrose Webster and then by John Wichita Bill Noble, whose son, John A. Noble also became a well-known artist. PAAM strengthened its role as the anchor of the art colony through the purchase of two plots of land and construction of a dedicated exhibition space. In 1919 the association purchased the former home of fishing captain Solomon Bangs at Bangs Street and Commercial Street, known as the Solomon Bangs house or Solomon's Temple. In 1921, the association added an adjacent property at 460 Commercial Street, once owned by Ephraim Cook and later by William Bangs. The Temple was demolished, and the building at 460 Commercial Street was renovated for use as a gallery by F.A. Days and Sons. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first exhibition to use the space was the Association's Seventh Exhibition, in 1921. Gallery space was further expanded in later decades. Early additions included the Little Gallery in 1930 and the Hawthorne Memorial Gallery in 1942. Carl Murchison oversaw the creation of the large, open Hofmann Gallery in 1960.The Ross Moffett Gallery opened in 1978 and the Herman and Mary Robinson Museum School in the 1970s.By 1978, the organization had also built a storage vault for its expanding collection. However, by 2001, the building was significantly deteriorating. A contemporary extension was designed by Machado and Silvetti Associates and completed in 2006. This renovation and expansion of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum has dramatically improved the museum's ability to store and display art. The first stage of the restoration, in 2004, involved the federal-style Ephraim Cook house. In 2005, the Hawthorne Annex from 1942 was replaced by the new Alvin Ross Wing, increasing the square footage of the facilities from 11,000 to 19,500 square feet and effectively doubling the museum's space.