Palm Springs Art Museum

EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTION

Palm Springs Art Museum is one of the most architecturally significant museum buildings in the American West, a 1976 E. Stewart Williams design set against the San Jacintos at the north end of downtown. Its 16,000-object collection runs deep on mid-century architecture and design, Cahuilla and Indigenous American art, Studio Glass, and Photography. The Architecture and Design Center, a few blocks away in a 1961 Williams building, focuses on desert modernism specifically. Admission covers both.

OPERATOR STORY

Palm Springs Art Museum was founded in 1938 and has grown into the defining cultural institution of the desert. Its collection is rooted in the character of the region: mid-century modernism, Cahuilla and Native American art, Photography, and Studio Glass, with an Architecture and Design Center dedicated to the built environment of the Coachella Valley. The museum also stewards Albert Frey's Frey House II on the hillside above. It is an independent nonprofit.