Perkins Center for the Arts is dedicated to excellence in the arts and to providing a wide range of creative opportunities for people of all ages and of every level of artistic development.

Central to our mission is the belief that artists and the language of the arts are ideal for perceiving and interpreting the complex modern world in which we live. Perkins Center is unique in its ability to provide high quality art programs in a grassroots community setting.

Perkins Center's programs include: Studio Classes in the visual and performing arts; a Conservatory with individual and group music lessons; an Exhibition Series featuring six exhibitions a year in Moorestown and four in Collingswood; a Performance Series including a Family Concert Series (classical) and DeCafé Coffeehouse (folk/contemporary); a Summer Arts Program bringing urban and suburban children together for eight weeks of art exploration; an ARTS (Arts Reaching The Students) Program matching professional artists with schools for extended residencies; and a Community Collaborations Program featuring an out-of-school arts program, a junior training artist program and a murals and community gardens initiative in the City of Camden.

Recognized by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as a Major Presenting Organization and receiving a Citation of Excellence, Perkins Center offers arts programs that promote participation, understanding, and communication among diverse audiences.

As a non-profit organization, Perkins Center receives financial support, donations and services from members, friends, businesses, corporations and foundations. Perkins Center is funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Our Moorestown Center

From our early roots in Moorestown, Burlington County, Perkins Center (incorporated in 1977) has become a regional arts center serving residents in southern New Jersey and beyond. Our Moorestown home is located in a Tudor-style manor house and carriage building surrounded by a 5-acre arboretum and situated between two county roads, the "center" of a residential neighborhood. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, both the manor house and carriage building were designed and built in 1910 by noted Philadelphia architect, Herbert C. Wise as a wedding gift for Alice and Dudley Perkins. The buildings were bequeathed to Moorestown Township in 1965; Perkins Center has a multi-year lease.

Our Collingswood Center

In 2002, Perkins Center expanded to a satellite facility in Collingswood, Camden County. Plans are underway to fully renovate the building to include quality art studios, classrooms and exhibition spaces within an environmentally sensitive "green building." Working in partnership with the Borough of Collingswood, this expansion allows us to develop new programs in the visual, performing and literary arts, reaching new audiences, while maintaining the warm and intimate atmosphere of a community arts center.

For more information, please email create@perkinscenter.org