Founder Elma Lewis | ||
Headquarters Massachusetts, United States Similar The Film Collaborative, Boston Center for the Arts, Handel and Haydn Society, USS Constitution Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art - Boston | ||
The National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) is an institution founded in 1968 by Elma Lewis to "preserv[e] and foster[] the cultural arts heritage of black peoples worldwide through arts teaching, and the presentation of professional works in all fine arts disciplines." Although the organization's name specifies African American artists, the organizational mandate includes all African diasporic art.
The museum subsumed Lewis' previously launched "Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts" (ELSFA). The NCAAA is the largest independent black cultural arts institution in New England, United States.
At its founding, the NCAAA was housed in a former firehouse in Franklin Park, Boston. The museum was moved to a separate building in 1980 and is now located at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.
Two fires in the early 1980s significantly damaged the firehouse, where the NCAAA was housed, although collections stored at the museum, which had its own facility, were unharmed.
Activities of the NCAAA have included:
Harriet Forte Kennedy served as the assistant director of the museum for some time.