Friends of the Collection

Looking to support your favorite collecting area and learn more about art and the High’s collection while attending exclusive events? Friends of the Collection is for you!

Benefits

  • Invitations to exclusive opening-night receptions for exhibitions in your collecting areas of interest
  • Two dedicated events per year organized by curators, including exclusive artist receptions, curator-led exhibition tours, behind-the-scenes collection visits, and more
  • Advance notice and priority registration for educational programs and opportunities to socialize with visiting speakers

How to Join

Friends groups are enhancements for current members.

For Current Museum Members: If you are already a High Museum of Art member, choose the “Museum Member” button beside the Friend group of your choice.

For Not-Yet-Members: If you are not yet a High Museum of Art member, choose the “Not-Yet-Member” button beside the Friend group of your choice, and you will be prompted to add a Friends group once you have selected a membership and added it to your cart.

To Join Multiple Friends Groups: If you would like to join more than one Friend of the Collection group, select the appropriate button beside one of your choice groups. After adding this to your cart, you will be asked to select other groups of your choice.

Questions? Please contact Elana Grossman, Associate Director of Foundation & Government Relations, at elana.grossman@high.org.

Friends of African Art

Join Lauren Tate Baeza, Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art, for private tours and special events related to the High Museum’s African Art collection. This collection prominently features the art and material culture of West and Central African makers, reflecting the cultural, social, and visual histories of these regions from antiquity to modern day.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of African Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of African American Art

Join us for private tours and special events celebrating and recognizing the profound contributions African Americans have made to the development of art in the United States. This Friends group supports the development of these holdings across several of the Museum’s curatorial departments.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of African American Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of American Art

Join us for private tours and special events exploring the High Museum’s robust historical American Art collection. With particular strengths in historical American sculpture and painting, the collection demonstrates the evolution of a distinctly American point of view in artistic representation.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of American Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of Decorative Arts and Design

Join Monica Obniski, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, for private tours and special events celebrating the High’s Decorative Arts and Design collection of more than 2,300 objects, including the renowned Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection—the most comprehensive survey of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American decorative arts in the southeastern United States.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of Decorative Art and Design enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of European Art

Join Claudia Einecke, Frances B. Bunzl Family Curator of European Art, for private tours and special events related to the High’s collection of more than nine hundred European art objects. This collection comprises more than a thousand paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, spanning six centuries of artistic endeavor, from the 1300s through the 1900s.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of European Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of Folk and Self-Taught Art

Join Katherine Jentleson, Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art, for private tours and special events celebrating the High’s prolific Folk and Self-Taught Art collection. Beginning in 1975 and officially established in 1994, this collection is especially rich in artworks by Southern and African American artists and features the largest groups of work by Bill Traylor, Howard Finster, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Thornton Dial held by any museum.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of Folk and Self-Taught Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art

Join Michael Rooks, Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for private tours and special events exploring the High’s innovative Modern and Contemporary Art collection. The collection encompasses art from 1945 to the present, including artworks in all media and from diverse geographic locations and cultures. It provides a broad overview of the art of our time with outstanding examples of work by definitive artists who emerged in the postwar era; midcareer artists who have expanded and challenged the canon since the early 2000s; and emerging artists whose influential work suggests new directions for the future.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of Modern and Contemporary Art enhancement at checkout.

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Friends of Photography

Join Gregory Harris, Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography, and Maria L. Kelly, Assistant Curator of Photography, for private tours and special events celebrating the High’s expansive Photography collection. With more than 8,500 prints, the Photography department comprises the Museum’s largest collection. It is particularly strong in American modernist and documentary traditions from the mid-twentieth century and in contemporary trends.

Members join for $1000.

Not a member? Join at any level and add a Friend of Photography enhancement at checkout.

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