Claude Monet - Flowering Arches, Giverny

The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the

southwest United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

. Located in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. A community center since 1959, it hosts festivals, live performances, independent art films and educational programs year-round. It also features ''The Hub: The James K. Ballinger Interactive Gallery,'' an interactive space for children; photography exhibitions through the museum's partnership with the Center for Creative Photography; the landscaped Sculpture Garden; dining and shopping. It has been designated a Phoenix Point of Pride.

History

Opened in 1959, the Phoenix Art Museum is located on the

Central Avenue Corridor The Central Avenue Corridor is a significant stretch of north–south Central Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona. Roughly bounded by Camelback Road to its north, and McDowell Road to its south, this is one of Phoenix's most vital and heavily trafficked ...

. Shortly after

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

became the 48th state in 1912, the Phoenix

Women's Club The woman's club movement was a social movement that took place throughout the United States that established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy. While women's organizations had always been a par ...

was formed and worked with the

Arizona State Fair The Arizona State Fair is an annual state fair, held at Arizona State Fairgrounds. It was first held in 1884, but has had various interruptions due to cotton crop failure, the Great Depression era, World War I & World War II years & the COVID-1 ...

Committee to develop a fine arts program. In 1915, the club purchased Carl Oscar Borg's painting ''Egyptian Evening'' for US$125 and presented it to the

city of Phoenix Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the onl ...

to begin a community art collection. In 1925, the State Fair Committee expanded its community responsibilities and formed the Phoenix Fine Arts Association. The next major advance in the local art community came during 1936, when the Phoenix Art Center was created under the auspices of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

. Its director was the painter Philip C. Curtis. Its success led to the creation in 1940 of the Civic Center Association, which set about raising funds and planning a building on a 6.5-acre plot donated by the heirs of

Adolphus Clay Bartlett Adolf (also spelt Adolph or Adolphe, Adolfo and when Latinised Adolphus) is a given name used in German-speaking countries, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Flanders, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and to a lesser extent in var ...

. These heirs included

Maie Bartlett Heard Maie Bartlett Heard (1868–1951) was an Arizona-based collector and philanthropist, who cofounded the Heard Museum of native American art. Background Born on June 11, 1868, in Chicago, to parents Adolphus C. Bartlett and Mary Pitkin. Her fathe ...

, who with her husband Dwight B. Heard founded the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

In the early 1950s,

Alden Dow Alden B. Dow (April 10, 1904 – August 20, 1983) was an American architect based in Midland, Michigan, and known for his contributions to the style of Michigan Modern. During a career that spanned from the 1930s to the 1960s, he designed more than ...

, an architect, was retained by the Board of Trustees to design a complex that would house the

Phoenix Public Library The Phoenix Public Library is a municipal library system serving Phoenix, Arizona, and operated by the city of Phoenix. There are 16 branches currently in operation citywide, anchored by the flagship Burton Barr Central Library on the northern edg ...

, the Phoenix Little Theater (now the Phoenix Theatre) and the new Phoenix Art Museum. The structural engineering firm chosen for this project was

Severud Associates Severud is a multinational structural engineering consulting firm headquartered in New York City, with additional offices in London and Paris. The firm has worked on over 12,000 projects around the world. History Severud was founded in the year 1 ...

. To coordinate this endeavor, the Phoenix Fine Arts Association named a new Board of Trustees in 1952 and the museum's first director, Forest M. Hinkhouse, in 1957. The museum opened on November 18, 1959, and was officially dedicated on November 21, 1959. Two years later, the board announced plans for an expansion, and in 1965 the museum was enlarged from to . Additional expansions, led by design architects

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (also known as Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects , Partners) are a husband-and-wife architectural firm founded in 1986, based in New York. Williams and Tsien began working together in 1977. Their studio foc ...

of New York, occurred in 1996 and 2006. The museum more than doubled its size with new exhibition galleries, a 300-seat public theater, a research library, studio classroom facilities, the PhxArtKids Gallery, and a café. Most recently, in 2006, the museum saw the opening of the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Wing for Modern Art, the Heather and Michael Greenbaum Museum Lobby, an expanded museum store and the Bennett and Jacquie Dorrance Sculpture Garden. A new entrance from the north parking includes a cantilevered canopy, creating a large outdoor pavilion area. The museum's growth has been funded, in part, by successful City of Phoenix Bond Elections and a voter-approved bond. In the last 50 years, the museum has hosted more than 400 exhibitions from all over the world, grown the collection to more than 18,000 works of art, and been visited by millions.

Collections

Young couple looking at painting Phoenix Art museum

Artist Werner Segarra standing in front of one of his photographic works with reflections of museum guests in reflection

View of Phoenix Art museum outdoor garden area

Phoenix young couple looking at artwork at Phoenix Art museum

In addition to an annual calendar of exhibitions, the museum's permanent collection galleries are drawn from more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. Visitors also enjoy photography exhibitions through the museum's landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. The museum has European paintings by Ubertini,

Girolamo Genga Girolamo Genga (c. 1476 – 11 July 1551) was an Italian painter and architect of the late Renaissance, Mannerist style. Life and career Genga was born in a region near Urbino. According mainly to Giorgio Vasari's biography, by age thirtee ...

Guercino Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as Guercino, or il Guercino , was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The vig ...

Carlo Dolci Carlo (or Carlino) Dolci (25 May 1616 – 17 January 1686) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Florence, known for highly finished religious pictures, often repeated in many versions. Biography He was born in Florence, ...

Bernardo Strozzi Bernardo Strozzi, named il Cappuccino and il Prete Genovese (c. 1581 – 2 August 1644) was an Italian Baroque painter and engraver. A canvas and fresco artist, his wide subject range included history, allegorical, genre and portrait paintin ...

Marcellus Coffermans Marcellus Coffermans (1520 – 1578), was a Flemish renaissance painter. Biography He was born in Helmond and is known for religious works and copies after other painters.

Jacob Cornelisz Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (before 1470 – 1533) was a Northern Netherlandish designer of woodcuts and painter. He was one of the first important artists working in Amsterdam, at a time when it was a flourishing and beautiful provincial ...

, Master of Astorga, Bartolomeus Bruyn the Elder, Nicolas Lepicie,

Giovanni Piazzetta Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (also called Giambattista Piazzetta or Giambattista Valentino Piazzetta) (February 13, 1682 or 1683 – April 28, 1754) was an Italian Rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes. Biography Piazzetta was ...

, Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun,

Antoine Vestier Antoine Vestier (1740 – 24 December 1824) was a French miniaturist and painter of portraits, born at Avallon in Burgundy, who trained in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Pierre. He showed his work at the Salon de la Correspondance, Paris, before ...

, George Romney, Camille Corot, Hippolyte Delpy,

Eugène Boudin Eugène Louis Boudin (; 12 July 18248 August 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His pastels, summa ...

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ran ...

(''Thumbs Down''),

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

(''Garden Arches, Giverny''),

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920 ...

, Léon Portau, Eduard Villard, and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

. It has American paintings by

Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...

Sanford Gifford Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly-regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its ...

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

Ernest Lawson Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 – December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and exhibited his work at the Canadian Art Club and as a member of the American group The Eight, artists who formed a loose association in 1908 to protes ...

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...

, Stuart Davis,

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...

, Jonas Lie,

Lew Davis Louis Davis (July 16, 1884—January 13, 1948) was an American film actor. He appeared in over 75 films between 1916 and 1948. Career A New York native, Davis appeared in his first film in 1916. He began to achieve fame after arriving at Columb ...

, Ernest Blumenschein, Joseph Sharp,

Howard Post Howard "Howie" Post (November 2, 1926 – May 21, 2010) Alternate source: "'Dropouts' cartoonist Howard Post dies in NJ at 83", Associated Press via ''The Washington Post'', May 24, 2010 was an American animator, cartoonist, and comic strip and ...

, and Ed Mell. It has contemporary art by

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...

(''You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies''),

Viola Frey Viola Frey (August 15, 1933 – July 26, 2004) was an American artist working in sculpture, painting and drawing, and professor emerita at California College of the Arts. She lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and was renowned for her ...

Donald Martiny Donald Martiny (born 1953 in Schenectady, New York) is an American artist. His abstract paintings are related to both action painting and Abstract expressionism. Life Donald Martiny studied from 1977 to 1980 at the School of Visual Arts in Ne ...

Kehinde Wiley Kehinde Wiley (born February 28, 1977) he returned to Nigeria, leaving Freddie to raise the couple's six children. 3/sup> Wiley has said that his family survived on welfare checks and the limited income earned by his mother's 'thrift store' – ...

Carlos Amorales Carlos Amorales (Mexico City, 1970) is a multidisciplinary artist who studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. The most extensive researches in his work encompass ''Los Amorales'' (1996-2001), ''Liquid Archive'' (1 ...

(''Black Cloud''), and

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

. It has 20th Century Sculpture by

Aristide Maillol Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University P ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...

Hans Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produc ...

, and

Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...

Education

The museum offers several educational programs. The museum's Education Division programming is segmented by audience and type of learning strategy to accommodate a range of ages and learning styles, both formal and informal. The Education Division also facilitates a nationally competitive Internship program. Internships are offered to current undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates with requisite coursework, experience, and background. The program is offered year-round and project-based internships are also offered on occasion.

Lemon Art Research Library

The Lemon Art Research Library is a non-circulating research library with an emphasis on the museum's art collection. It contains more than 40,000 books, periodicals, artist files and more. It is the largest specialized fine arts library in the region. It is free of charge during public hours.

Funding

Community support accounts for approximately 80% of the museum's revenue through admissions, membership and earned revenue, which includes the store and facility rentals. Government support of the museum is approximately 3% of the budget; corporate contributions constitute approximately 10% of the budget. The museum's endowment contributes the remainder, approximately 7%.

Gallery

File:Phx Art Museum SW03.jpg, Adelaide Labille-Guiard, ''Madame Adelaide'', 1791 File:Phx Art Museum SW05.jpg, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ''Thumbs Down'', 1872 File:Phx Art Museum SW04.jpg, Julius LeBlanc Stewart, ''Spring Flowers'', 1890 File:Phx Art Museum SW06.jpg, Eugene Boudin, ''The Old Harbor at Touques'', 1891 File:Phx Art Museum SW08.jpg, Antonio Rizzi, ''Study in White'', 1896 File:Phx Art Museum SW07.jpg, Edouard Vuillard, ''Madame Hessel Working at a Dressmaker's Table'', 1908 File:Phx Art Museum SW01.jpg, Willard Franklin Midgette, ''Processing Sheep'', 1976 File:Phx Art Museum SW02.jpg, Kenneth Riley, ''Bodmer Painting Piegan Chief'', 1986

References

External links

Phoenix Art Museum
website {{authority control Phoenix Points of Pride Museums in Phoenix, Arizona Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Art museums and galleries in Arizona Works Progress Administration in Arizona Art museums established in 1959 1959 establishments in Arizona Alden B. Dow buildings Asian art museums in the United States Federal Art Project