Bergamot Station Arts Center
 Santa Monica

Bergamot Station is Southern California's largest art gallery complex and cultural center, located on eight acres in the heart of Santa Monica featuring contemporary art galleries, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, architecture and design firms, a cafe, and a frame shop.

Bowers Museum of Cultural Art
Santa Ana

One of Southern California's finest museums and Orange County's largest, the Bowers Museum is one of the only museums in the United States devoted to promoting human understanding through art. Its state of the art special exhibition and collection storage facilities enable the Bowers to present world class exhibitions and preserve collections of cultural art for future generations. International partnerships have been developed with the Palace Museum, Beijing, the British Museum, and many others. Its location, close to four major freeways and four miles south of Disneyland, makes the Bowers an ideal destination for visitors to Southern California.

The Getty Center
Los Angeles

The Getty Center presents the Getty's collection of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present against a backdrop of dramatic architecture, tranquil gardens, and breathtaking views.
 

The Huntington
San Marino

The Huntington is a research and educational center set amidst 120 acres of breathtaking gardens. Three art galleries and a library showcase magnificent collections of paintings, sculptures, rare books, manuscripts, and decorative arts. The botanical collection features over 14,000 different species of plants.  A private, nonprofit institution, The Huntington was founded in 1919 by railroad and real estate developer Henry Edwards Huntington and opened to the public in 1928.
 

LACMA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles

Explore a collection with more than 100,000 works of art at LACMA, the largest encyclopedic museum west of Chicago. Through its far-reaching collections, the museum is both a resource to and a reflection of the many cultural communities and heritages in Southern California. Experience European masterpieces, cutting-edge contemporary art, an extensive collection of American art from the United States and Latin America, a major Islamic art collection, one of the most comprehensive Korean art collections outside of Korea, and the stunning Pavilion for Japanese art.

MOCA: Museum of Contemporary Art
Los Angeles

Founded in 1979, MOCA is the only museum in Los Angeles devoted exclusively to contemporary art. It is committed to the collection, presentation, and interpretation of work produced since 1940 in all media, and to preserving that work for future generations. In a remarkably short time, MOCA has developed one of the nation's most renowned permanent collections. Now numbering over 5,000 works and steadily growing, this invaluable cultural resource provides extensive opportunities for education and enjoyment to thousands of national and international visitors. Today the museum is housed in three unique facilities: MOCA Grand Avenue, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, and MOCA Pacific Design Center.
 

Museum of Jurassic Technology
Culver City

A small, singular and strange institution that challenges our notions about museums, science and knowledge. Science fiction author Philip K. Dick would have loved the place, as do many staffers of places like the Getty and LACMA. From their website: "...The public museum as understood today, is a collection of specimens and other objects of interest to the scholar, the man of science as well as the more casual visitor, arranged and displayed in accordance with the scientific method. In its original sense, the term "museum" meant a spot dedicated to the muses - "a place where man's mind could attain a mood of aloofness above everyday affairs."
 

MOLAA: Museum of Latin American Art
Long Beach

The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, California was founded by Dr. Robert Gumbiner in November 1996. It is the only museum in the western United States that exclusively features contemporary Latin American art. Through the utilization of its permanent collection, traveling exhibitions, and programs, MOLAA educates a diverse Southern California audience about contemporary Latin American art.
 

Museum of Tolerance & Simon Wiesenthal Center
Los Angeles

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time.  The Center’s multifaceted mission generates changes through the Snider Social Action Institute and education by confronting antisemitism, hate and terrorism, promoting human rights and dignity, standing with Israel, defending the safety of Jews worldwide, and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations.  The Museum of Tolerance, the Center’s educational arm, founded in 1993 challenges visitors to confront bigotry and racism, and to understand the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts. 

Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles County
Los Angeles

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is a crown jewel of Los Angeles' museums. A national leader in exhibitions, education and research, the Museum was L.A.'s first cultural institution to open its doors to the public in 1913. It is the largest natural and historical museum in the Western United States, safe guarding more than 33 million spectacular, diverse specimens and artifacts.

Norton Simon Museum
Pasadena

The Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena holds one of the world's finest and most prestigious collections of art.  Reflecting the extraordinary effort and vision of its founder, it stands as a tribute to Human Civilizations, the visual arts, and the nobility of individual accomplishment. The permanent collections consist of Western and Asian art from a period spanning more than 2,000 years.  European and American masterpieces including paintings, sculpture, works on paper and photography are complemented by stunning art works from India and Southeast Asia.  The Museum holds an extensive print collection, which includes rare etchings by Rembrandt and Goya as well as a comprehensive collection of Picasso graphics. 
 

Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena

The Pacific Asia Museum's permanent collection contains more than 14,000 rare and representative examples of art and artifacts from Asia and the Pacific Islands, spanning a period of 5,000 years.
 

Page Museum At The La Brea Tar Pits
Los Angeles

The Page Museum is located at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles. Rancho La Brea is one of the world’s most famous fossil localities, recognized for having the largest and most diverse assemblage of extinct Ice Age plants and animals in the world. Visitors can learn about Los Angeles as it was between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, when animals such as saber-toothed cats and mammoths roamed the Los Angeles Basin. Through windows at the Page Museum Laboratory, visitors can watch bones being cleaned and repaired. Outside the Museum, in Hancock Park, life-size replicas of several extinct mammals are featured.
 

Santa Monica Museum Of Art
Santa Monica

The Santa Monica Museum of Art offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy stimulating contemporary arts exhibitions and programming (current exhibitions) for all ages. The museum is part of Bergamot Station, a historic train station transformed into a dynamic and lively arts complex unique in Los Angeles. Bergamot Station houses 33 galleries, 10 shops, and a cafe.

Skirball Cultural Center
Los Angeles

The Skirball Cultural Center has established itself as one of the world's most dynamic Jewish cultural institutions, and among the most prominent cultural venues in the United States. Its mission is to explore the connections between four thousand years of Jewish heritage and the vitality of American democratic ideals. It seeks to welcome and inspire people of every ethnic and cultural identity in American life. Guided by our respective memories and experiences, together we aim to build a society in which all of us can feel at home. The Skirball features an extraordinary museum, changing exhibitions, engaging music, theater, comedy, film, family, and literary programs, Zeidler's Café, and Audrey's Museum store, and a new interactive family destination inspired by the Noah's Ark story—all in a stunning architectural setting designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie.

Southwest Museum
Los Angeles

The galleries at the Southwest Museum of the American Indian are closed to the public at this time, due to extensive rehabilitation of the building and conservation of its rare collection of Native American artifacts, with the goal of moving most of the collection to a new state-of-the-art home by 2009. Plans call for the infrastructure improvements to the Southwest Museum to be completed by 2010, when the building will be open for a new cultural use.

UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History
Los Angeles (Westwood)

An ethnology-based art institution, The Fowler Museum explores art and material culture primarily from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas, past and present. The Fowler seeks to enhance understanding and appreciation of the diverse peoples, cultures, and religions of the world through highly contextualized interpretive exhibitions, publications, and public programming, informed by interdisciplinary approaches and the perspectives of the cultures represented.
 

UCLA Hammer Museum
Los Angeles (Westwood)

The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center (AHMACC) opened to the public in November 1990. Founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the Museum was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Today, the Museum’s exhibitions present contemporary and historical work in all media of the visual arts. Through its exhibitions, the Museum is committed to promoting cultural understanding, to introducing the work of underrepresented artists, and to interpreting art of the past and present.
 

William S. Hart Ranch And Museum
Newhall

A Member of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, William S. Hart Park is less than an hour's drive from most areas of Los Angeles. It is the former home and ranch of William S. Hart, silent film cowboy star and director. The Museum sits atop a hill within a large park area. The Spanish colonial Revival style mansion contains original furnishings, an impressive collection of western art, mementos of early Hollywood and Native American artifacts.

Also See:

Free Museum Days
(Museums In Los Angeles & Southern California)

Guides To Museums & Galleries
In Los Angeles And Southern California
 

More:
Los Angeles Guide Books