The Weatherspoon Art Museum was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was established as a resource for the campus, community, and region, and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection. Other prescient acquisitions during Ivy’s tenure included a 1951 suspended mobile by Alexander Calder; Woman by Willem de Kooning, which was purchased in 1954; and the first drawings by Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson to enter a museum collection. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The permanent collection of nearly 6,000 works represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Through a dynamic annual calendar of fifteen to eighteen exhibitions and a multi-disciplinary educational program, the museum was accredited in 1995 and again in 2005.