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Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Thursday 10am - 7pm Friday 10am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Columbia Museum of Art

Name: Columbia Museum of Art
Address: 1515 Main Street, Columbia, SC, 29201, US
Telephone: +18037992810

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Columbia Museum of Art

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South Carolina's premier international art museum, located in the heart of downtown Columbia. Art is meant to be experienced, not just seen.

10/22/2026

Join us November 5 as we celebrate Native American Heritage Month in collaboration with the South Carolina Commission for Community Advancement and Engagement and the Native American Studies Center. The evening, in connection with the larger 30th Annual Native American Film Festival, honors accomplishments in Native American art and culture in South Carolina. Enjoy three short films, including SCCCAE’s documentary “Native American Arts & Crafts in South Carolina,” and two shorts featuring Beckee Garris and Tammy Leach, winners of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s 2026 Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award.

After the screenings, stick around for a talkback with artists Beckee Garris, Tammy Leach, and Lisa Lindler. Moderated by Stephen Criswell of NASC. Plus, participate in a poetry project, A Mountain of Crumbled Candor, by Native American artist Abby Duran.

Free as part of Free First Thursday at the CMA. For more info click the link >>> https://www.columbiamuseum.org/events/native-american-arts-south-carolina-documentary-shorts-talkback

10/20/2026

📣 Calling all tinkerers, artisans, and craftspeople! We are looking for more volunteer fixers to help out with our Repair Fair on Sunday, November 15. This event encourages the community to bring their broken, overused, or under-loved objects to the CMA for an afternoon of community, repair, and sustainability in action.

🛠️ We are seeking tailors, metalsmiths, knife sharpeners, small appliance and home fixture repair-people, bicycle repair-people, and fix-it-folks of all kinds. Learn more about the Repair Fair and fill out the volunteer interest form (please submit by November 1) at the events link >>> https://www.columbiamuseum.org/events

10/19/2026

Congratulations Farrar Stewart - , you're our Arts & Draughts giveaway winner! Please message us with your contact information (Name, email, and phone number) so our staff can reach you. Also, don't forget, you must attend the event to claim your prize.

Arts & Draughts returns this Friday, October 23!

🎨 Check out featured exhibition Body Matters and the CMA Collection, including micro-exhibitions Ground, Richard Samuel Roberts: A Columbia Legacy, Winston Wingo: Who Would We Be/Who Could We Be?, and Pat Steir: Gravity Makes the Image

🎶 Groove to live music from Nordista Freeze, DemBoyzGood, Sean Thomson (performing his GORILLA album in full), Tam the Viibe, and DJ Airborne Audio. WUSC DJs will also be playing tunes from around the world all night

👕 Watch Ophidian artist demonstrate the art of tattooing and Bluetile Print Studio as they screenprint the official Arts & Draughts t-shirt designed by Chelsea Owen. Peruse Ophidian’s new flash sheet including designs inspired by the CMA Collection (!!) and pick out your favorite temporary tattoo for the night

👤 Attend a Meet and Create with Richland Library's Art Committee to collage a body like no body you've ever seen before

🤘 Join the hosts of the Jam Room Music Festival for an art activity inspired by craft objects in Body Matters

🌭 Indulge in delicious food from Bowl N' Burrito, Doggone Good Dogs, and Gimbap Station

🍻 Savor fall flavors with Highland Brewing or pop up to the bubbly bar

➕ And more! Take a unique perspective tour of Body Matters, go on a scavenger hunt through the CMA Collection, take part in live figure drawing with models whose looks are inspired by Body Matters, weave your own basket using upcycled craft materials, and pick up the pieces to create a kintsugi-inspired keepsake

🫶 Ages 18 and up. Join/renew membership or volunteer for a short shift and enjoy the rest of the evening for free!

👉 Learn more and secure your ticket at the link >>> https://www.columbiamuseum.org/events/arts-draughts-11

This program is held in partnership with Weco Bottle & Biergarten. Sponsored by TCG & Associates – UBS Financial Services Inc.

10/15/2026

Only two more weeks until the Diwali Kickoff Party at your CMA! Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, is an annual holiday that brings together people from across India and the world to celebrate goodness and knowledge with neighbors.

Come join in on the festivities! Enjoy hands-on activities, art, music, dancing, shopping, food, chai, and more in the spirit of joy and community.

Learn more at the events link>>> https://www.columbiamuseum.org/events/diwali-kickoff-party-1🪔💛🎶

This event is supported in part by Bank of America. A grant from the Knight Foundation Fund at Central Carolina Community Foundation supported this project.

10/12/2026

What's on deck at your museum for the rest of October? Check out these upcoming events:

🧘‍♀️ October 14 — Sound Bath & Guided Relaxation | 4–5pm

🫆 October 15 — Print Lab | 5–8pm

🏳️‍🌈 October 17 — Focal Points Tour: Beyond Representation | 1–2pm

🐦‍⬛ October 18 — Collection Tour: CMA Birdwalk | 2–2:45pm

👧 October 21 — Gladys' Gang Preschool Edition: Head to Toe | 10–11am

🍻 October 23 — Arts & Draughts | 7–11pm

🎃 October 24 — The Contemporaries Present Pumpkins and Painting | 9:30–11:30am

🖼️ October 24 — Public Tour of the Collection | 11am–12pm

🧘‍♀️ October 28 — Sound Bath & Guided Relaxation | 4–5pm

🪔 October 29 — Diwali Kickoff Party | 6–9pm

Learn more at the link >>> https://www.columbiamuseum.org/events

10/09/2026

Get excited — your favorite museum party is just two weeks away 🎉 Arts & Draughts returns Friday, October 23, and we’re celebrating with a giveaway!

Enter for a chance to win two A&D tickets, a two-cardholder membership, and some merch.

Who’s coming with you? Tag them in the comments 👇

Here’s how to enter:⁠
1️⃣ Like and save this post⁠
2️⃣ Tag a friend in the comments⁠

Winner announced in our stories on Monday, October 19, and don't forget, you must attend the event to claim your prize.

If you're planning to come regardless, grab your tickets and get ready for an unforgettable mix of art, music, community, and more! Arts & Draughts is in partnership with Weco Bottle & Biergarten and Sponsored by TCG & Associates – UBS Financial Services Inc.

Learn more about Arts & Draughts at the link >>> https://bit.ly/4rSE9vQ 🤘

10/08/2026

Like museum merch? Well head to your CMA and snag swag inspired by your love for art, our collection, and our featured exhibition Body Matters.

Did you know? One of your CMA membership perks is a discount on merch as well as events, classes, and camps. To learn more about membership, click the link >>> https://bit.ly/4hDcCLx✨

10/04/2026

It’s been a week! Let’s take some time to rest and slow down as we take a look at Anton Prinner’s Chess Set.

Chess, perhaps more than any other board game, embraces the human figure as central to its physical design. This set highlights the duality inherent to the game — not only of the opposing black and white pieces, but with male and female, sun and moon. Inspired by Egyptian iconography, these individual figures exhibit a certain hybridity — the rooks are depicted as half-building, half-human caryatid figures, while the knights resemble centaurs, blurring boundaries between human and animal.

Prinner himself understood this dichotomy intimately — born Anna, when he moved to Paris in 1927, he became Anton and lived as a man. This set, like much of his work, conveys a fluid understanding of gender, with simplified figures that look both modern and ancient.

Fun fact: This chess set is missing a board, so our crackerjack curatorial team hand-painted one for the exhibition!

Anton Prinner
French (born Hungary), 1902–1983
Chess Set, c. 1950
Painted ceramic
Gift of René Batigne
CMA 1952.62.1-32
On view in Gallery 3 of Body Matters

10/02/2026

🎉🎉 Time to toot our own horn! Your museum won not one but two 2026 Southeastern Museums Conference-SEMC awards: a bronze publication award for our gallery family guide and a silver technology award for our field trip orientation video. Award winners were celebrated at the 2026 Annual Meeting Awards Luncheon on September 30 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Arts education is the beating heart of our mission, and we are honored to receive this recognition from our museum colleagues across the Southeast. Thank you!

09/30/2026

Huge congratulations to artist Rodney McMillian, who was just named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow, recipient of what’s commonly referred to as the Genius Grant! An internationally renowned artist born and raised right here in Columbia, SC, and based in Los Angeles, McMillian confronts American identity through a variety of mediums by addressing complex histories — of class and race, of landscape and region, of art and a nation. The MacArthur Foundation describes him as “an artist exploring how history and socioeconomic conditions determine experience and belonging in the United States, and particularly in the American South.”

We recently collaborated with McMillian on his first solo exhibition in the Southeast — Rodney McMillian: A Son of the Soil, organized by and exclusive to the CMA, which ran from March 21 to June 28, 2026, and featured the artist’s work across a range of media, including painting, video, and works assembled from industrial materials and household discards. The exhibition broadly located McMillian’s artistic investigations within the cultural and political landscape of the American South, highlighting his diverse engagements with topics of land, the body, and the domestic sphere.

In this clip, excerpted from an in-gallery video, the artist reflects on the meaning behind the title and how his South Carolina roots have shaped his perspectives on politics, culture, and society.

Join us in congratulating him, and we can’t wait to see what he does next!

Address

1515 Main Street
Columbia, SC
29201

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 7pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 5pm
Sunday	12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+18037992810

Website

https://www.columbiamuseum.org/

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