Museums
- Museum of Contemporary Craft - Closed in 2016
- Portland Art Museum
The following is a partial list of institutions and individuals who are notable and active in the art scene of Portland, Oregon.
The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) is a contemporary performance and visual arts organization in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. PICA was founded in 1995 by Kristy Edmunds. Since 2003, it has presented the annual Time-Based Art Festival (TBA) every September in Portland, featuring contemporary and experimental visual art, dance, theatre, film/video, music, and educational and public programs from local, national, and international artists. As of November 2017, it is led by Executive Director Victoria Frey and Artistic Directors Roya Amirsoleymani, Erin Boberg Doughton, and Kristan Kennedy.
The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet, with more than 112,000 square feet of gallery space. The museum’s permanent collection has over 42,000 works of art. PAM features a center for Native American art, a center for Northwest art, a center for modern and contemporary art, permanent exhibitions of Asian art, and an outdoor public sculpture garden. The Northwest Film Center is also a component of Portland Art Museum.
The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is an art school of Willamette University and is located in Portland, Oregon. Established in 1909, the art school grants Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees and graduate degrees including the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) and Master of Arts (MA) degrees. It has an enrollment of about 500 students. The college merged with Willamette University in 2021.
Brad Adkins is an American self-taught artist and curator. In 2002, Chas Bowie of The Portland Mercury declared Adkins "the poster boy of low-rent artwork.", Also in 2002, D.K. Row of The Oregonian listed Adkins as one of ten "artists you don't know, but should." Matthew Stadler of Nest and Clear Cut Press calls Adkins "an orchestrator of the quotidian", "whose interventions turn the everyday into art."
Jeff Jahn is a curator, art critic, artist, historian, blogger and composer based in Portland, Oregon, United States. He coined the phrase declaring Portland "the capital of conscience for the United States," in a Portland Tribune op-ed piece, which was then reiterated in The Wall Street Journal.
Plazm magazine has been published since 1991 by a collective of designers, writers, and others in Portland, Oregon, United States. The complete catalog of Plazm magazine is included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Princeton University, and the Denver Art Museum.
The Hallie Ford Museum of Art (HFMA) is the museum of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States. It is the third largest art museum in Oregon. Opened in 1998, the facility is across the street from the Oregon State Capital in downtown Salem, on the western edge of the school campus. Hallie Ford exhibits collections of both art and historical artifacts with a focus on Oregon related pieces of art and artists in the 27,000 square feet (2,500 m2) facility. The museum also hosts various traveling exhibits in two of its six galleries.
Blue Sky Gallery, also known as The Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, is a non-profit exhibition space for contemporary photography in Portland, Oregon. Blue Sky Gallery is dedicated to public education, began by showing local artists and then slowly expanded to national and international artists.
Kvinneakt is an abstract bronze sculpture located on the Transit Mall of downtown Portland, Oregon. Designed and created by Norman J. Taylor between 1973 and 1975, the work was funded by TriMet and the United States Department of Transportation and was installed on the Transit Mall in 1977. The following year Kvinneakt appeared in the "Expose Yourself to Art" poster which featured future Mayor of Portland Bud Clark flashing the sculpture. It remained in place until November 2006 when it was removed temporarily during renovation of the Transit Mall and the installation of the MAX Light Rail on the mall.
Arlene Schnitzer was an American arts patron and philanthropist. She was the founder and director of the Fountain Gallery, established in Portland to showcase artists in the Pacific Northwest. She is the namesake of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, a performing arts center in Portland, Oregon.
Yale Union was a nonprofit contemporary art center in southeast Portland, Oregon, United States. Located in the Yale Union Laundry Building built in 1908, the center was founded in 2008. In 2020, the organization announced it would transfer the rights of its building to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF). It dissolved the nonprofit after wrapping up its program in 2021 and completing the building and land transfer. The space is now the Center for Native Arts and Cultures.
MK Guth is an installation artist from Portland, Oregon, United States, whose work engages ritual and site of social interaction. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at museums, galleries, and festivals including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Swiss Institute, White Columns, and the Melbourne International Arts Festival among others. She is the recipient of the Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award and the Ford Family Foundation Fellowship.
The Bonnie Bronson Fellowship, named after American painter and sculptor Bonnie Bronson, is an award presented annually to Pacific Northwest artists.
Kristan Kennedy is an American artist, curator, educator and arts administrator. Kennedy is co-artistic director and curator of visual art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). She is based in Portland, Oregon, and has exhibited internationally, working with various media including sculpture and painting.
Angkor I is an outdoor stainless steel sculpture by Lee Kelly, located at Millennium Plaza Park in Lake Oswego, Oregon, in the United States. The 1994 sculpture stands 14 feet (4.3 m) tall and weighs 1,000 pounds (450 kg), and was influenced by his visit to Southeast Asia one year prior. In 2010, Angkor I appeared in an exhibition of Kelly's work at the Portland Art Museum. In 2011, it was installed at Millennium Plaza Park on loan from the Portland-based Elizabeth Leach Gallery. The Arts Council of Lake Oswego began soliciting donations in 2013 in an attempt to keep the sculpture as part of the city's permanent public art collection, Gallery Without Walls. The fundraising campaign was successful; donations from more than 40 patrons, including major contributions from the Ford Family Foundation and the Oregon Arts Commission, made purchase of the sculpture possible. Angkor I has been called a "recognizable icon" and a "gateway" to the park's lake.
Judith Poxson Fawkes was an American tapestry weaver based in Portland, Oregon, who exhibited her works nationally beginning in the 1960s.
Julia Christiansen Hoffman was an American artist and arts patron who fostered the Portland Arts and Crafts movement in the state of Oregon, through exhibitions and art classes. In 1907 she led the establishment of the Arts and Crafts Society of Portland, a forerunner of the Oregon College of Art and Craft.
Robert Henry Hess was an American sculptor and art educator. He was best known for his abstract metal sculptures and wood carvings. Hess served on the faculty of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, for 34 years. Today, his works are found in prominent public spaces and private collections throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Susan Jordan Harlan is a German-born American artist and educator.
Heidi Schwegler is an American artist in Yucca Valley, California.
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