Phoenix Art Museum became the southwestern United States’ largest visual art museum through decades of civic effort that began soon after Arizona achieved statehood. Early support from the Phoenix Women’s Club, the Phoenix Fine Arts Association, and the Phoenix Art Center helped build a public collection and momentum for a permanent museum, which opened in 1959. Expanded several times, it grew from a modest building into a 285,000-square-foot complex with galleries, a theater, classrooms, a sculpture garden, and a major research library. Its holdings exceed 18,000 works across many artistic traditions, and it also serves as a year-round cultural center for exhibitions, films, performances, festivals, and education.