Throwback Thursday – Celebrating the Arts for Over 35 Years
A Bowling Green event dedicated to the arts is kicking off this week. Hosted by the Kentucky Museum, the annual U.S. Bank Celebration of the Arts competition and exhibit runs now through April 17. With more than three decades of history, it’s the largest annual arts display across southern Kentucky.
The inaugural Celebration of the Arts exhibit was first held in 1984. Before U.S. Bank opened its Bowling Green locations, these banks lived under the Trans Financial umbrella. The large Trans Financial Bowling Green headquarters downtown on Main Street housed the art shows for nearly 20 years.
Open to regional artists, the bank set up the displays in its downtown lobby. As the show grew larger and outgrew the original venue, the celebration moved to the Kentucky Museum at WKU around 2003 and has called it home ever since.
The exhibit is open to artists within a 65-mile radius of Bowling Green and usually features more than 200 artists and a few hundred entries across several categories. The exhibit is open to mixed mediums and art forms, including sculpture, quilts, paintings, photography and much more.
More than 30 area art organizations, individual artists and foundations sponsor awards. Some of these host other art events throughout the region, like The World’s Greatest Studio Tour and the Jerry E. Baker Foundation’s Downing Museum exhibits. WNKY TV is proud to be a media sponsor of the 2020 celebration and showcase this event steeped in more than 35 years of southern Kentucky history.
