Arlington Museum of Art in Arlington, TX is one of more than 15,400 museums in the MuseumsUSA directory. Find an exciting museum to visit where you live or vacation today.

The Arlington Art Association was organized in 1952 by Howard Joyner, Chair of the Art Department at University of Texas at Arlington, and a small group of artists dedicated to fostering arts in the community, offering art classes, workshops and membership shows. The Arlington Museum of Art, a 20,000 square foot former J. C. Penney department store, was established in 1987 when the Association purchased the building in downtown Arlington. Purchase of the building culminated the Association's long-term dream to have a museum in Arlington. Previously organized as a volunteer-run art group, the museum's direction changed dramatically in 1991, when it hired its first professional director.

In 1989, the space opened with a curated exhibition, Woodworks, featuring works in wood by North Texas artists, that established the museum's mission to show contemporary Texas art. The simple, white 1950s moderne building provides a large, two-story, naturally lit open gallery well-suited for showing contemporary art.

The museum fills a niche in the North Texas Metroplex as an innovative alternative space showing the lively art of today. Six changing exhibitions yearly feature works by young and mature Texas artists and are geared to challenge visitors about contemporary art in the state and in a larger, regional, national, and international context.