The American painting collection was established by Bartlett Arkell, the founder and first president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company. The paintings he collected are recognized today as some of the best works created by leading late 19th- and early 20th-century American artists. Arkell built the art gallery attached to the Canajoharie Library in 1927, and worked with the Macbeth Gallery in New York to acquire a remarkable collection of American paintings. The collection includes works by Winslow Homer, and important paintings by George Inness, William M. Chase, Childe Hassam, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth, Maurice Prendergast, Robert Henri.