1000 Museums

Phoenix is home to the Southwest\’s most significant visual arts institution. Founded in 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has been a downtown Phoenix landmark and leader in the Arizona arts community for 50 years. Located on Central Avenue, the Museum was designed by architect Alden Dow, a devout student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Two expansions in 1996 and 2006, designed by the prominent New York firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, expanded the Museum to more than 200,000 square feet and created the stunning airy and light-filled interiors.

Comprised of more than 18,000 objects, the Museum\’s collection includes works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Fashion Design. It is particularly strong in the art of the Americas, especially that of the American West, and is renowned for its more than 2,700 Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Indian and Southeast Asian artworks that span centuries.

Additional highlights include the Museum\’s Fashion Design collection, one of only a handful in the country. The collection houses more than 5,000 objects of men\’s, women\’s and children\’s dress and accessories dating from the late 17th century to the present. The Modern and Contemporary collection includes works by Georgia O\’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Anish Kapoor, Josiah McElheny and James Turrell, among many others.

In 2006, Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson inaugurated a highly innovative and unprecedented collaboration to bring the finest photography to Phoenix Art Museum visitors. It established a vibrant new photography exhibition program at the Museum, while bringing the Center\’s world-renowned collections to new and larger audiences.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Alan Levine https://flic.kr/p/8AyHG7
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