Museums - Portland Art Museum

The Portland Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest and, since its founding in 1892, it has amassed a diverse collection of more than 33,000 objects and works of art. As the twentieth century dawned, the city of Portland planned for a great extravaganza, the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The fair established Portland as a leading West Coast cultural and commercial center. The museum building was constructed with funds from Henry Corbett’s bequest and a donation from Mrs. William Sargent Ladd. Families like the Ladds, Corbetts, Failings, Lewises, Hirsches, Adams, Fleischners and Woods were generous lenders, whose holdings included prints, paintings, textiles, sculpture, decorative arts and Native American art. Today’s collections are rooted in these early acquisitions.
The 1970s and 1980s saw substantial growth of the museum’s collections and programs. In August 2000, the Portland Art Museum celebrated the successful completion of a two-year, $45 million renovation and construction project. Today the museum’s collection includes works of European painting and sculpture, American painting and sculpture, English silver, Asian art, Native American art, pre-Columbian art, Cameroon and other African art, contemporary art, sculpture, prints and drawings, and photography.
The Grand Ronde Center for Native American Art designed by Clifford LaFontaine displays some 375 works of art, drawn from virtually every major cultural group in North America, including the Northwest Coast. The museum’s collection of Native American art is the most frequently requested aspect of its overall collection and is one of the three most important collections of its type in American art museums. The collection is remarkable for both its depth and diversity, consisting of objects crafted by more than 200 indigenous groups from throughout North America, including prehistoric, historic and contemporary works of outstanding quality.