Arizona State University Art Museum

The Arizona State University Art Museum is an art museum operated by Arizona State University, located on its main campus in Tempe, Arizona. Established in 1950, the museum holds approximately 12,000 objects in its permanent collection. It describes its primary focuses as contemporary art, including new media and innovative methods of presentation, crafts with an emphasis on American ceramics, historic and contemporary prints, art from Arizona and the Southwestern United States with an emphasis on Latino artists, and art of the Americas, featuring historic American pieces alongside modernist and contemporary Latin American works.

The art collection was established in 1950 when prominent Phoenix lawyer Oliver B. James gave a gift of 16 oil paintings by American artists to ASU. Over five years, James donated over 149 works by various American, Mexican, and European artists. Originally housed among the stacks at the university's Matthews Library, a Neoclassical building constructed in 1930 and remodeled in 1951, the art collection remained there after the books were moved to the Charles Trumbull Hayden Library in 1966, and the building was renamed Matthews Center. Rudy Turk served as the founding director and curator from 1967 until 1992. In 1977, the museum received a National Endowment for the Arts matching grant to purchase contemporary American ceramics. By 1978, the museum occupied the entire second floor of the Matthews Center with 10,000 square feet of exhibition space. In April 1989, the museum moved into the newly completed Nelson Fine Arts Center, after which its staff doubled. Marilyn A. Zeitlin became director in 1992 and was praised for expanding the collections eightfold. Under her direction, the museum curated Bill Viola's show at the United States Pavilion at the 1995 Venice Biennale. Zeitlin stepped down at the end of 2007 following a controversy involving a financial arrangement with donor Stephane Janssen, though an audit found the arrangement was not illegal and was discontinued. The current director is Miki Garcia.

The museum's collection encompasses several distinct areas. Its Latin American art holdings focus on 20th century Mexican art, Mexican ceramics and folk art, and contemporary Cuban art. The core of the Latin American collection was donated in 1950. The museum also holds American works, which comprise one of its smallest collections, ranging from early American limner painters to 20th century modernists. Contributions from donors over the years have particularly expanded the museum's collections of prints and American crafts, the latter bolstered significantly by a 1977 National Endowment for the Arts matching grant for contemporary American ceramics.

The museum's contemporary art holdings include works by Hung Liu, Karel Appel, Derek Boshier, Deborah Butterfield, Sue Coe, Dan Collins, Vernon Fisher, Jon Haddock, William Kentridge, Lynn M. Randolph, Frances Whitehead, and William T. Wiley. The core of the Latin American collection includes works by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and Rufino Tamayo. Later acquisitions of Mexican art include pieces by Carlos Merida, Leonel Gongora, Rafael and Pedro Coronel, Jose Guadalupe Posada, Leopoldo Mendez, and other members of the Taller de Grafica Popular, as well as contemporary artists Alejandro Colunga, Lucio Muniain, and Nestor Quinones. Cuban artists in the collection include Yamilys Brito, Pedro Alvarez, Tonel, Osvaldo Yero, Abel Barroso, Rene Francisco, Jacqueline Brito, Fernando Rodriguez, Jose A. Toirac, and Kcho. The museum has also acquired pieces by Brazilian artists Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, Efrain Almeida, and Oscar Oiwa. American works include pieces by Romare Bearden, Dagoberto Nolasco, Charles Demuth, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Stuart Davis, as well as 19th century romantic landscapes, Ashcan School works, and portraits such as Gilbert Stuart's Mrs. Stephen Peabody.

The museum is located in two buildings. The main exhibition space is the Nelson Fine Arts Center, designed by architect Antoine Predock, which opened in April 1989. The Nelson Center encompasses 49,700 square feet and includes five galleries, administrative offices, and storage and processing areas. The second facility is the Ceramics Research Center, which opened in March 2002 just to the north of the Nelson Center. Designed by Gabor Lorant Architects, Inc., the Ceramics Research Center is located on 7th Street and Mill Avenue in the Brickyard Engineering Building and includes 7,500 square feet with two galleries, open storage stacks, and a research library. Additional facilities across the museum's two buildings include a lecture room, a print study room, and a nymphaeum courtyard.

The Arizona State University Art Museum is located on the main campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The museum director reports to the dean of the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and community members are represented through the museum's Creative Impact Board. Admission to the museum is free. Parking at the main museum in the Nelson Fine Arts Center is free for visitors using the reserved spaces directly in front of the museum, while parking at the Brickyard location for the Ceramics Research Center is metered.