Given Atlanta’s history, it’s not surprising that an art museum wasn’t high on the list of priorities for the city, seeing as there was a bit of rebuilding to do there in the latter part of the 19^th century.

However, life goes on, and interest in the arts and culture began to grow once again in the aftermath of the Civil War. Theater, literary, and music events were put on by local civic organizations; there was even a “lively” visit by Oscar Wilde in 1882. It was during these times that the seeds that would eventually grow into the High Museum of Art were planted. 

As is the case for many other museums, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta had humble beginnings. The museum began as the Atlanta Art Association in 1905. The Association was founded by a group of women, with the eventual goal of establishing a real art museum in Atlanta, but at the time they had no building, little money, and no art! It would not be until 1926 when Harriet "Hattie" Harwell Wilson High made a gift to the city of her mansion on Peachtree Street that this new art museum would find a home.

The donation of the eighteen-room house was made as a memorial to her deceased husband, James Madison High (hence the name of the museum), who founded one of the “leading mercantile establishments” in Atlanta. Since the Association was founded, the group had been slowly but surely putting together a collection of art, some purchased and some donated. They had also been busy generating interest by holding an annual exhibition for several years.

By 1931, the museum had become pretty popular with Atlantans; there were exhibitions featuring American as well as European art, and special events on Sundays, including lectures on a variety of subjects and musical programs. The first significant donation of art came in 1949 from J.J. Haverty, founder of the Haverty Furniture Company in Atlanta, whose collection was comprised of works by Childe Hassam, Henry Ossawa Tanner, William Merritt Chase, and others. 

In 1962, tragedy struck the museum - not directly, but it still hit very close to home. The Atlanta Art Association had organized a trip to Europe to visit some of the leading museums there, and on their flight home, the Air France 707 crashed during an aborted takeoff from Orly Field, just outside of Paris, killing nearly everyone onboard; only two flight attendants would survive. 106 of the 122 passengers onboard were from Atlanta and most, if not all, had ties to the arts scene in the city, so in addition the terrible loss of life, this was a blow to the museum itself.

The crash led to one piece of art being created, one lent, and one donated. Andy Warhol, keeping it classy, painted 129 Die in Jet! that same year. This was his first “disaster painting,” modeled on the cover of the New York Mirror of June 4, 1962, published the day following the crash. Since the patrons on the plane had visited the Louvre on their trip and seen Whistler's Mother, the storied French museum sent it to Atlanta to be exhibited. In 1968, the government of France presented the Auguste Rodin sculpture The Shade to the museum as a memorial to the crash victims. Although the museum lost some of its most dedicated supporters, the city came together and raised $13 million in four years to build the Memorial Arts Center (now the Woodruff Arts Center), which today includes the High Museum, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Alliance Theatre.

By the late 1970s, the High had long since outgrown its original home and a modern museum building was designed by architect Richard Meier, expanding the space to 135,000 square feet, just a wee bit larger than their previous place. The High Museum and the Atlanta Art Association helped fuel what is now a thriving arts and cultural scene in Atlanta and the surrounding environs.