Quad City Arts

Quad City Arts enriches the quality of life in the Quad Cities region through the arts, fostering a thriving arts community by intentionally building its role as an arts presenter, advocate, connector, and resource hub. 

A nonprofit organization, Quad City Arts serves a six-county area in eastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois. Founded in 1970 as an arts advocacy organization that operated a visual arts gallery and re-granting program for local artists, the Visiting Artists program launched in 1974 to present multidisciplinary performing arts through residencies in schools and at community sites. Visiting Artists reach nearly 25,000 school kids each year. Due to the high demand for residencies, Quad City Arts launched Festival of Trees in 1986 to raise funds for this and other programs.

Today, in addition to offering artists residencies, Quad City Arts features more than 250 artists annually in gallery shows in their three gallery spaces, awards $90,000 for arts projects throughout the community, hosts nearly 50 apprentices in the Metro Arts Youth Apprenticeship Program, and places sculptures in their Public Sculpture Program.

In 2019, Wastyn & Associates facilitated a pandemic-interrupted strategic planning process for Quad City Arts that finally concluded in 2021 to plan and create their future. The strategic plan led them to create their Artist Index and will soon launch a business skills for artists workshop series.