Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas Informations

The Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas is a 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) art and science museum located at 701 Main Street in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It includes four galleries, a 232-seat theatre, classroom space, administrative offices, vault and adequate preparatory and conservation space for the Center’s current programming efforts.

Support for the center is provided in part by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Arts and science Center for Southeast Arkansas was founded in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1971. Its mission is to provide opportunities for the practice, teaching, and understanding of the arts and sciences.

Programs include collections and exhibitions, performing arts, education, hands-on kids science exhibits, special events, and fundraising.

The present focus of the Center’s permanent collection addresses the Center’s regional constituency and places emphasis upon collecting works by African-American artists, Arkansas artists.

The Center's paintings vary in mediums. The styles range from symbolist, to figurative, to narrative, to abstract, to realist. The collection includes several Arkansas artists, including six pieces from Larry D. Alexander’s “Dermott Series”, and the landscapes of Henri Linton. The Center also has the Elsie Mistie Sterling Collection of Botanical Paintings, the largest known collection of botanical watercolor paintings by one artist.

The Center has an extraordinary collection of Art Deco bronze sculptures, known as the John Stern Collection. There are also several contemporary sculptures by regional artists.

The Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas has developed a unique collection of photography, ranging from the documentation of the Mississippi Delta culture to the abstract. The J.C. Covert Collection is historically significant in educating the population about life in the Delta at the turn of the 20th century, focusing on cotton fields and riverboats. The Howard Stern Collection of photographs is more abstract in nature as Stern creates extraordinary views of everyday objects.

The Center has a growing collection of drawings and prints, including seriographs by Jacob Lawrence and Red Grooms, lithographs by Joan Miró and Kathe Kollwitz, and etchings and ink drawings from Benny Andrews.

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