Museums, galleries, and gardens offer eclectic resources ranging from the ancient to the avant-garde, helping to make UCLA the leading arts and cultural center in the West.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA is internationally known for the quality of its collections. They encompass the arts and material culture of much of the world, with particular emphasis on West and Central Africa; Asia and the Pacific; and the Americas, past and present. It supports UCLA instruction and research and sponsors major exhibitions, lecture programs, and symposia. The museum is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday.
Housed in the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts holds a distinguished collection of over 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artists’ books, including nearly 10,000 works from the prestigious Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection. A study and research facility for the benefit of students and the community, the center’s permanent holdings include significant European and American examples from the fifteenth century to the present. It is particularly noted for its collection of German Expressionist prints and works on paper by Matisse and Picasso, as well as the Richard Vogler Cruikshank Collection and the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection of Japanese prints. The center is open only by appointment.
Situated on a picturesque five-acre expanse that spans the heart of north campus, the Murphy Sculpture Garden contains a collection of over 70 major works by Arp, Butterfield, Calder, Falkenstein, Hepworth, Lachaise, Lipchitz, Matisse, Moore, Noguchi, Rodin, Smith, Zuniga, and many other late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century masters. All works in this distinguished collection are private gifts to UCLA. Tours may be arranged.
UCLA has the largest collection of meteorites on the West Coast and the fifth largest in the U.S. Many of the most important meteorites are displayed in the Meteorite Gallery located in 3697 Geology. The collection and gallery are a major resource for cosmochemical research and the teaching of planetary science.
The New Wight Gallery is an exhibit space for visual arts, including student and faculty exhibitions, housed in 1100 Broad Art Center.
The Hammer Museum regularly presents its collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings by such artists as Cassatt, Monet, Pissarro, Sargent, and Van Gogh. The museum organizes and presents major changing exhibitions devoted to examinations of historical and contemporary art in all periods. Cultural programming—including children’s performance and storytelling series, music, poetry readings, and lunchtime art talks—are presented throughout the week.
