Central Arkansas Library System
Art Program & Exhibits
CALS houses more than just books. CALS’s art program also actively collects and exhibits works by artists living and working in Arkansas. The CALS Permanent Collection holds nearly 2,000 works of art and incorporates a wide range of media, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Works are added to the collection regularly through purchases and donations.
The CALS Roberts Library also features historical exhibits in its West Gallery.
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From the Vault: Contemporary Crafts from the CALS Art Collection
September 26, 2026 – Winter 2026 | CALS Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art, Underground Gallery
As part of our From the Vault series featuring works from the permanent collection of the Central Arkansas Library System, the exhibition Contemporary Crafts from the CALS Art Collection will focus on Arkansas artists who exemplify the creative ability to move artistic traditions in new directions.
Among many other works, the exhibition will feature examples of woodworking by Gene Sparling and Shep Miers, ceramic arts by Helen Phillips and Barbara Satterfield, basketry by Leon Niehues, and fabric arts by Deborah Kuster and Louise Halsey.
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Artwork from Japanese American Incarceration in Arkansas
September 26, 2026 – Winter | CALS Roberts Library West Gallery
Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the West Coast. Nearly two-thirds were American citizens. Under Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942, they were incarcerated without charges or trials in a network of ten American concentration camps administered by the War Relocation Authority.
Two of these concentration camps were established in the Arkansas Delta at Rohwer and Jerome, where nearly 16,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945. Surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, prisoners endured cramped barracks, limited privacy, and the uncertainty of confinement. Using found and salvaged materials alongside traditional artistic techniques, prisoners produced paintings, drawings, wood carvings, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, and other works that reflected both Japanese cultural traditions and the realities of incarceration. Art offered opportunities for creative expression, cultural continuity, education, and community while documenting everyday life behind barbed wire.
The works in this exhibition preserve the stories of those unjustly imprisoned and remind us of the lasting consequences of wartime fear, racism, and the erosion of civil liberties in the United States.
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Capturing History: Highlights from the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies Photograph Collections
September 26, 2026 – Winter | CALS Roberts Library West Gallery
Explore a selection of photographs from the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, drawn from tens of thousands of images documenting the people, places, events, and everyday life of Arkansas. Spanning decades and communities across the state, these photographs offer glimpses into Arkansas’s history and the people who shaped it.
Periodically, content in this collection will be updated to feature different photographs from our collections.
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The United States Colored Troops in Arkansas
September 26, 2026 – Spring 2027 | CALS Roberts Library West Gallery
During the Civil War, more than 5,500 men of color in Arkansas joined the Union Army to fight for their freedom and preserve the United States. Across the nation, approximately 178,000 African Americans served in the United States Colored Troops (USCT), with thousands more serving in the U.S. Navy.
In Arkansas, eight infantry regiments and two artillery batteries of Black troops were organized during the war. These soldiers fought in the Union cause while confronting the realities of slavery, racism, and inequality. Hundreds of Arkansas’s Black soldiers died from combat, disease, and other hardships of military service.
This exhibit recognizes their courage, sacrifice, and essential contribution to the Union victory alongside a recently unveiled Monument to U.S. Colored Troops. Initiated by the Central Arkansas Library System in 2023, the monument seeks to bring greater recognition to the Black Arkansans who fought for freedom and helped shape the state and nation that followed the Civil War.
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Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees: Works by Cathy Melvin
September 18, 2026 – November 1, 2026 | CALS Main Library, 5th Floor Gallery
Art Program and Collections Policies at CALS
The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) houses more than just books. CALS’s art program also actively collects and exhibits works by artists living and working in Arkansas. The CALS Permanent Collection holds nearly 2,000 works of art and incorporates a wide range of media, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Works are added to the collection regularly through purchases and donations.
From the Vault is a recurring exhibition series curated to feature historical and contemporary artworks from the CALS Permanent Collection that show the diversity of art being created in Arkansas. Exhibitions in this series also highlight community-orientated elements of the collection and feature selected works to celebrate Black History Month and Women’s History Month, display art from the Japanese American Incarceration Camp Collection, and more. Other exhibitions highlight the craft or process-oriented elements of the collection such as Niloak pottery or documentary photography.
CALS displays its own art collection as well as traveling exhibitions throughout the entire library system, especially in the Underground Gallery in the Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art and in two new gallery display areas on the first and fifth floors of the Main Library.
CALS believes that the arts preserve and transmit our heritage, enrich our lives, and contribute significantly to the social, educational, and cultural well-being of all Arkansans, and our mission is to provide a venue for the study, practice, and enjoyment of the arts and artists of Arkansas. The artists in our permanent collection include Arkansas natives, current residents of Arkansas, and people whose artwork deals with Arkansas-related themes, and our exhibitions have a similar focus.