Now, 70 years later, the Wagga Art Society will celebrate its milestone with its largest ever exhibition.

Liberated from its Small Street studios for the first time, the artists' are preparing to unveil their works on the walls of the Wagga Art Gallery.

"We're usually in our own small studio, so it's quite special to be having it here," said society president Peter Jamieson.

"As far as I know, this is the first year we've done that."

Launching on Friday from 6pm, the exhibition heralds 90 works made by 60 collaborators.

Seeing them on the gallery walls has been a particular thrill for Mr Jamieson, who has overseen the transformation from canvas to artwork as the weeks went by.

"I've watched some of them be created," he said.

"A few only took a few hours, others took weeks. Mine has been finished for about a month, but some hadn't started a month ago."

Ranging in age from the mid-20s to 89, the art collective has changed and adapted with each new generation.

Fellow artist and society secretary Geoff Fellows believes art has always maintained an importance in Wagga.

"Art has been prominent in Wagga for many years," he said.

"We were founded at the end of the '40s, and we've often had high members in our midst. There's been [past] mayors and councillors, it's been quite prominent."

Though the numbers have dropped, the artist prominence has remained strong as new forms of art have been added.

"Digital artwork different even exist when we started," said Mr Fellows.

This week's exhibition boasts 11 different media forms, including digital photography, rafia weaving, woodblock printing, and the more traditional forms of oil, acrylic and watercolour painting, graphite and charcoal drawing, mixed media, and pen and wash techniques.

The 70^th anniversary exhibition will be opened on Friday night by internationally recognised fine arts academic Dr Denis O'Connor.