The Knoxville Museum of Art will open Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, a new permanent installation of works from its collection celebrating the art and artists of Knoxville and the surrounding region. The fascinating and complex story of our area’s rich artistic heritage and its connections to the larger currents of American art are largely unknown, and certainly underappreciated. Highlights of the new installation include important works by Catherine Wiley and Lloyd Branson, pioneering artists who introduced Knoxville audiences to Art Nouveau, Impressionism, and other international art movements of their day; Joseph and Beauford Delaney, two of America’s most significant African-American artists; and works from the 1950s and 1960s by the Knoxville Seven, a group of progressive artists connected to the University of Tennessee who transformed and energized the area’s artistic climate. Art from more recent decades includes mixed-media objects by visionary sculptor Bessie Harvey along with a selection of works by leading area artists whose creations represent the quality and diversity of art-making in the region today.