After more than 30 years of dreaming, Scottsdale finally has its Museum of the West. The building was designed by local architecture firm Studio Ma and reflects the desert and Western heritage in a beautiful, contemporary way. You enter through the Scottsdale Charros Gateway Lobby, where the artist Maynard Dixon’s dramatic 1935 mural Kit Carson with Mountain Men is on display. The 43,000-square-foot museum has two levels with ten galleries, a sculpture garden, and a theater. It’s a short walk from Hotel Valley Ho, only a few minutes away.
Charles Fritz,The Captains Lewis and Clark-Trusted Leaders, Loyal Friends
Oil on canvas, Courtesy the Peterson Collection
The museum allows you to explore the color, imagination and vibrancy of Western art and history through compelling multi-media exhibitions. You can experience first-person accounts by people who have shaped the West’s cultural heritage through films, campfire chats, children’s activities, live reenactments and fascinating events. This is truly where the Old West meets the New West, and the West comes to life with its inspiring values of integrity, optimism, perseverance, courage and creativity!
Herman W. Hansen, Pony Express Rider, (n.d.).
Oil on canvas, On loan from the Peterson Collection.
