The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County is currently celebrating a milestone few organizations can claim: their 75th anniversary. Founded in 1949, the organization champions the artists, organizations, and cultural experiences that define the region. 

“Winston-Salem has so many amazing artists and a strong community of support networks,” says Robyn Churn, a self-taught painter and mixed-media artist. “There are lots of shows and festivals focused on local art, which gives us multiple opportunities to be seen. It’s a welcoming, encouraging place to put yourself out there as an artist.” 

As the first arts council in the country, it created a blueprint for how local governments and communities could support the arts. Its model of public-private partnership — where funding came from both government and private donors — was later adopted nationwide. 

It supported the founding and growth of institutions such as the North Carolina School of the Arts (now UNC School of the Arts), Piedmont Opera, and the Winston-Salem Symphony. It currently houses three performing venues used by local theatre companies and touring shows, the renowned Sawtooth School for Visual Arts, two art galleries, and a gift shop selling local arts and crafts. 

The N.C. School of the Arts opened in Winston-Salem in 1965 as America’s first public arts conservatory. About 1,250 students are enrolled in the five conservatories that comprise what is now the University of N.C. School of the Arts: Dance, Design and Production, Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. The school consistently ranks on the Hollywood Reporter’s Top 10 list in the areas of Drama, Film, and Design and Production. In addition to educating tomorrow’s stars, it provides an impressive roster of pre-professional music and dance concerts, operas, plays, and films to the public.

From the founding of Salem in 1766 to the dedication of the Innovation Quarter in 2013, art and innovation have been baked into Winston-Salem’s DNA. The Moravians, a Protestant group with Central European roots who settled in North Carolina in the mid-1700s, sought religious freedom and community life. They established Bethabara in what is now the northern end of Winston-Salem and Salem in the South. 

Known for their music, craftsmanship, and architecture, they established the Salem Band in 1771. The oldest continuously running mixed wind ensemble in the U.S., the band still performs year-round in Salem Square and at other venues. Salem today is called Old Salem and is a living history museum near the heart of downtown Winston-Salem. Enactors occupy its colonial-era buildings to tell stories and demonstrate crafts. 

The town of Winston was established in 1896 as the administrative seat for Forsyth County. Winston and Salem merged in 1913, with the former becoming the industrial center of the town, and the latter retaining a more residential and religious atmosphere. 

Virginian Richard Joshua Reynolds brought his tobacco factory to Winston in 1874 because of the town’s strategic location on a new railroad line and proximity to high-quality tobacco. While R.J. ran the vast R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and amassed a fortune, his wife, Katharine, acted on her beliefs about social progress by planning churches, schools and modern housing for farmworkers and the Reynolda staff, as well as daycare for the children of factory workers and onsite medical care. 

“The region saw Reynolda as an experiment station where local farmers came to learn about the latest techniques and agriculture,” says Bari Helmes, director of Archives and Library at Reynolda House. 

R.J. Reynolds personally contributed to local causes, providing key funding for educational initiatives such as the establishment of what became the HBCU, Winston-Salem State University. Philanthropy from the Reynolds family created Reynolda House and Gardens, hospitals, schools, charities, and the arts. Their legacy fostered a culture of civic engagement and helped transform Winston-Salem into a modern city known for education, culture, and economic development. 

In 1967, Barbara Babcock Millhouse, one of the Reynoldses’ granddaughters, closed the Reynolds home as a private dwelling and dedicated it to the public as Reynolda House Museum of American Art. The collection that Millhouse started is displayed throughout the house. Traveling and in-house exhibitions are shown in the Babcock Wing of Reynolda House, completed in 2005. From the 1880s through the 1980s, textiles and tobacco dominated Winston-Salem’s industry and culture. 

Families such as the Haneses became nationally recognized, pioneering innovations in textiles and employing thousands. The Hanes companies merged in 1965 and evolved into leading brands, eventually becoming Hanesbrands Inc. The Hanes family donated their home and contributed to the creation of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in 1956. It came under the N.C. Museum of Art umbrella in 2007, and in 2023-2024, its name was changed to N.C. Museum of Art Winston-Salem. It displays both in-house and traveling exhibitions of curated contemporary art.

The Downtown Arts District (started in the 1980s) provides a rich and compact experience of the arts in Winston-Salem. The scene on Trade and Liberty streets from Fifth to Ninth streets is chockfull of galleries, shops, eateries, bars, music halls, a theatre, a couple of yoga studios, and an infra-red sauna spa. Colorful murals and decorated mannequins (look up!) illustrate the city’s culture and simply delight the viewer. Art for Art’s Sake created an extraordinary building and a clever art park on Seventh and Liberty streets. Stores and shops stay open later than usual for the arts district’s Art Hop on the first Friday and the Art Crush on the third Friday of the month. 

Founded in 1945, Sawtooth School for Visual Art offers classes and workshops in 11 disciplines: Ceramics, Drawing & Painting, Digital Arts, Glass, Metals & Lapidary, Photography, Printmaking, Textiles, Woodworking, Youth Programs, and Art + Wellness (for patients, survivors, and caregivers). Besides its historic home with its “Sawtooth” roofline on Marshall Street, the art school has an important presence in the Intergenerational Center for Art and Wellness on Shorefair Drive. 

The Generations Center, as it is known, opened a 62,500-square-foot facility led by Senior Services, Inc., in late 2023. In collaboration with 21 partner organizations, it’s the first of its kind in the U.S., offering a shared space for healthcare, creative arts, education, and social engagement. 

The Mixxer Community Makerspace in Winston-Salem is a nonprofit, membership-based creative hub that provides access to high-tech and traditional tools, training, and collaborative space for makers of all kinds Mixxer offers workshops in areas such as woodworking, metalworking, electronics, sewing, and digital fabrication, including laser cutting and 3D modeling. It also hosts youth STEAM programs, public events, and an annual "Arts on Fire" festival that draws regional talent. 

Piedmont Craftsmen is dedicated to promoting fine contemporary and traditional craft. Founded in 1963, it comprises a community of nearly 400 artists from across the U.S. The organization sells their curated crafts year-round at a store on Trade Street.  Annually, the weekend before Thanksgiving, the Piedmont Craftsmen’s Fair is one of the top juried craft fairs in the country. 

Founded in 1972 by the Winston-Salem Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Delta Fine Arts is the oldest African-American multidisciplinary arts organization in the city and the only one of its kind in North Carolina founded by African-American women. The public face of Delta Fine Arts is the Delta Arts Center. It presents rotating exhibitions of visual art, including works by local and nationally recognized African-American artists; workshops, lectures, performances, and community events. 

Triad Cultural Arts is a multidisciplinary cultural arts organization dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the heritage of Black Americans through immersive programming and community engagement. It produces spectacular Juneteenth and Kwanzaa celebrations for the city, and provides Black Heritage and Foodway tours. Triad Cultural Arts recently restored a 120-year-old shotgun house in the Happy Hills neighborhood that is now a museum showcasing Black life during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras. 

The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) is a nationally renowned institution dedicated to preserving and interpreting the decorative arts of the early American South. Located in the historic Old Salem Museums and Gardens, MESDA houses the most comprehensive collection of Southern decorative arts in the country. The Timothy S. Y. Lam Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest University is North Carolina’s only museum dedicated exclusively to the study of global cultures. Located in Palmer Hall on the WFU campus, the museum houses nearly 30,000 archaeological and ethnographic artifacts from over 350 cultures and 90 countries, including items from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

Winston-Salem has great community and professional theatre companies. The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem is entering its 91st season. Some highlights will include “Moriarty” by Ken Ludwig, “Sister Act,” and “A Christmas Carol,” adapted by local New York Times best-selling author Charlie Lovett. Other local theatres include 40+ Stage Co., Camel City Playhouse, Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance, Stained Glass Playhouse, and Spirit Gum Theatre, a professional company. 

The Winston-Salem Symphony is one of the Southeast’s most respected regional orchestras, now entering its 76th season. It’s known for blending classical masterpieces with contemporary and popular music, offering a rich and diverse concert experience for the community. Piedmont Opera, now in its 49th season, is one of the leading regional opera companies in the country. It is known for producing high-quality opera using a mix of international, national, regional, and local talent, and it draws audiences from across 16 states. 

When the Late Larry Leon Hamlin founded N.C. Black Repertory Co. in Winston-Salem in 1979, it became the first professional African-American theatre in the state.

The Piedmont Shakespeare Company is a new nonprofit theatre organization dedicated to producing free and accessible Shakespeare plays throughout the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. Founded in 2025 by theatre professionals and university faculty, the company aims to fill the gap left by closures of earlier regional theaters. 

After 10 years of N.C. Black Rep productions in people’s living rooms and venues throughout the city, Hamlin launched the National Black Theatre Festival – now the International Black Theatre Festival – in 1989. The late Maya Angelou was the first honorary chair, and she brought in the stars, including Oprah Winfrey, Sidney Poitier, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Since then, the crème de la crème of Black entertainers have been presenting music, history, comedy, and dramatic plays here every other year. 

The annual Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors is the largest book festival in the Carolinas. It brings together more than 50 authors and illustrators from various genres each September for several days of events, including panel discussions, workshops, and activities for both adults and children. The festival is known for its wide-reaching community engagement, offering something for readers of all ages and interests. Bookmarks opened its physical bookstore in July 2017. The store serves as a home base for Bookmarks, a nonprofit literary organization originally started by the Junior League in 20024. 

The RiverRun International Film Festival is a prestigious, Oscar-qualifying event held annually. It showcases a wide array of films including narrative features, documentaries, shorts, animated films, and student projects from around the world. OUT at the Movies is Winston-Salem’s premier LGBTQ+ film organization, known for hosting the OUT at the Movies International Film Festival, the second largest LGBTQ+ film festival in North Carolina.