Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center

The Southern Ohio Museum opened its galleries and programs to the public in 1979, after the community’s largest bank moved its headquarters from the handsome Beaux Arts style building at 825 Gallia Street in the heart of Portsmouth’s downtown. The building currently houses two permanent installations featuring the largest single collection of works by native son and well-known American Scene painter Clarence Holbrook Carter (1904-2000) and “Art of the Ancients,” containing 10,000 prehistoric Native American objects from the Charles and William Wertz Collection. Three other galleries feature group and solo exhibitions of well-known and emerging contemporary Ohio and regional artists. The Museum also offers a 100-seat theatre for music and performing arts, a gift shop, a reading room complete with more than 1000 volumes, a student art studio, a docent-centered tour program, an off-site circus arts studio, and year-round programming designed to enhance the exhibitions.