Los Angeles · Opened in 1990 · European masters and contemporary creation

The Hammer Museum brings together European paintings, works on paper and contemporary creation at UCLA in a museum founded by industrialist and collector Armand Hammer.

The Hammer Museum opened to the public in November 1990 in Westwood, a few weeks before the death of its founder Armand Hammer. Designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, it first presents European paintings, old drawings and the collection dedicated to Honoré Daumier brought together by the collector. The partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles was finalized in 1994, then the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts and the collections of the Wight Art Gallery joined the museum. This university complex profoundly broadens its vocation: old masters, 19th century art, more than forty-five thousand works on paper and a growing contemporary collection interact with exhibitions, commissions and public programs. Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Manet reveal here three ways of constructing human presence and landscape. The "Hammer Museum" selection notably compares Portrait of a Man Holding a Hat - Rembrandt and Trees from the garden of Saint-Paul Hospital - Van Gogh. Its reading favors details.

At Hammer, art history and living creation meet in a university museum where the collection becomes a tool for viewing, studying and debating.