Named for Doylestown's most famous son, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer James A. Michener, this museum was founded in 1988 with a regional focus, housing a collection of Pennsylvania impressionist paintings. An ongoing interest is the collection and exhibition of the work of art-furniture makers and designers working in the Bucks County area, such as George Nakashima. With a 2012 grant from the Center, the Michener organized the first major retrospective of the work of art-furniture designer Paul Evans, whose mid-20th-century, metal-sculpted chests and cabinets represent an expressive alternative to the unadorned minimalist furniture of the same era. A 2015 Center grant will support the presentation of Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form, an exhibition of painter and photographer Charles Sheeler's little-known fashion photography created for Condé Nast between 1926 and 1931—a body of work that significantly informed the aesthetic vision of one of American modernism's founding figures.
