Palm Springs Art Museum

Mid-century art museums

Located at the base of Mt. San Jacinto in the heart of downtown Palm Springs, architect E. Stewart Williams designed the Palm Springs Art Museum’s current home, which opened in 1974.

Architecturally dramatic and a remarkable example of the evolution of desert modernism (or perhaps, desert brutalism), the 150,000 sq. ft. space holds a diverse art collection that’s filled with the works of many mid-century artists including Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to name a few.

In 2014 the museum restored and adapted the Santa Fe Federal Savings & Loan building (300 S. Palm Canyon Drive), a mid-century modern jewel box of a building – also designed by E. Stewart Williams, circa 1961 – which is now home to the museum’s Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion.