Opening November 2025, the 17,000 sq. ft. space, named for the Museum’s Director Emeritus, features historic paintings, sculpture, works on paper; Thorne Miniature Rooms; Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis; and other celebrated collection holdings
PHOENIX (October 10, 2025) – On November 28, 2025, Phoenix Art Museum reopens its Art of the Americas + Europe galleries in the newly dedicated James K. Ballinger Wing, named in honor of the institution’s Director Emeritus who served in the leadership role for four decades until his retirement in 2014. Home to 10 gallery spaces, the Ballinger Wing houses outstanding examples of historical American, Western American, Viceregal Latin American, and European art from the PhxArt Collection, presented in conversation with contemporary works by Amalia Mesa-Bains, Virgil Ortiz, and Federico Solmi, among other new acquisitions and significant loans. Alongside thematic installations, special exhibitions titled “Curated Encounters” offer focused explorations on individual artists, strengths of the PhxArt Collection, and more. The space also showcases special presentations of work by Arizona artists Ed Mell and George Elbert Burr, the renovated Thorne Miniature Rooms, and the relocated and reimagined Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis.
“Phoenix Art Museum is excited to honor James K. Ballinger’s incredible legacy with the naming of our Art of the Americas + Europe Wing, which reopens this fall with more than 250 outstanding works from the Museum’s Collection and beyond,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “This first comprehensive renovation of these gallery spaces in nearly a decade, with their new installations and interpretative texts and materials, is a testament to the Museum’s curatorial team and our commitment to engaging audiences with our collections in new, accessible, and thought-provoking ways that extend beyond traditional art historical narratives.”
The historic renovation and new installations mark the culmination of a year-long curatorial collaboration among five PhxArt curators, including Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO; Olga Viso, the Selig Family Chief Curator; Rachel Sadvary Zebro, Associate Curator of Collections; and JoAnna Reyes, PhD, Adjunct Curator for Art of the Americas, with special advisement from Betsy Fahlman, PhD, the Museum’s former Adjunct Curator of American Art.
The renovation of the newly named Ballinger Wing enables PhxArt to present its Art of the Americas collection from a fresh, hemispheric perspective. Rather than viewing the geographies and cultures of the Americas as separate and exclusive of each other, installations will consider the history of the region in the context of exchange, migration, and cultural interplay among Indigenous, European, African, African American, Hispanic, Latine and Asian traditions that have shaped the art of the Americas across centuries.
Landscapes of the American West
The Art of the American West collection at PhxArt is distinguished by outstanding holdings of landscape painting, including desert Southwest landscapes. Works by featured artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton, Maxfield Parrish, Thomas Moran, and Emil Bisttram demonstrate the ways artists across centuries depict the region’s dramatic light and color, vast geologic forms, flora and fauna, and human-made dwellings.
Life and Legend in the West
This installation investigates the layered and dynamic narratives of the American West, a region characterized by distinctive lifestyles and cultural histories rooted in the influence of Latin American and Hispanic cultures, as well as the rich traditions of Indigenous peoples such as the Diné (Navajo), Apache, Hopi, Pueblos, Pima, Havasupai, and Tohono O’odham. In addition to historical work by artists including Joseph Henry Sharp and E. Irving Couse, visitors discover contemporary perspectives from Ivan McClellan, Otis Kwame Kye, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Grace Kennison, and Virgil Ortiz that challenge common perceptions of the American West by centering Black cowboy culture, Indigenous futurism, cowgirl culture, and more.
18th– and 19th-century American Art
The Museum’s 18th– and 19th-century American Art collection is home to nearly 450 works that trace the artistic and cultural development of the United States, anchored by iconic portraits and landscapes. Portraits such as John Singleton Copley’s John A. Graham (c. 1798) and William Merritt Chase’s The White Rose (c. 1886) reflect America’s formative years and the transatlantic traditions that shaped early painting, while later portraits by John Singer Sargent, Julius LeBlanc Stewart, and more reveal the growing sophistication of American art as it balanced European influence with a distinct national identity. Landscape paintings by Alexander Helwig Wyant, George Inness, Elihu Vedder, and other artists signal the traditions of the Hudson River School, Tonalism, and American Impressionism.
Art and an Evolving Nation
Throughout history, art has been used to examine issues of power, sovereignty, justice, identity, nation-building, protest and dissent, and more. Placed in dialogue, historical and contemporary works from the PhxArt Collection reflect how artists throughout the history of the United States have used their practices to document and engage with moments of social change, highlighting the power of art to spark discussion, deepen understanding, promote resilience, and inspire hope for a greater future. Featured artists in this installation include Fritz Scholder, Ali Dipp, William Henry Powell, Gilbert Stuart, and Federico Solmi.
Viceregal Art of Latin America
Drawn primarily from the PhxArt Collection with select loans including work by local artist Gennaro Garcia, this installation highlights tradition and innovation in the art of Latin America during the 16th through the 19thcenturies, when territories in the Americas and Asia were governed by viceroys, or Spanish administrators. Visitors discover how the Latin American viceroyalties were important hubs of cultural and economic exchange. Featured works demonstrate the various ways local artists of the time adapted to the tastes of an increasingly globalized clientele, reinterpreting traditional media like lacquerware and ceramics from China and Japan, and how they developed new religious imagery in place-specific contexts.
Amalia Mesa-Bains: In Dialogue
A highlight of the renovated Art of the Americas galleries includes a large-scale installation by Amalia Mesa-Bains, who throughout her five-decade career has become a central scholar, artist, and writer in Chicana feminist art and established altar-making as a cornerstone of Chicana/o artistic practice. Queen of the Waters, Mother of the Land of the Dead: Homenaje a Tonatzin/Guadalupe (1992) is an offering to the divine mother goddesses from three cultures that shaped Mexico—the Indigenous Nahua, or Aztec, represented by the goddess Tonantzin; the Spanish, represented by the Virgen de Guadalupe; and West African culture, represented by the Queen of the Waters, Yemayá. An important objective of Chicana/o art is recovering history and cultural connections that Mexican-descended people lost through assimilation into U.S. society. Mesa-Bains’ altar counters the erasure of cultural intermixing in Mexico, providing a more nuanced understanding of Chicana/o’s rich heritage.
European art has been at the heart of the Museum’s Collection since 1959, beginning with the acquisition of a major painting by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and today is home to more than 1,200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Focused presentations investigating a range of art historical traditions and movements, including the Renaissance, the Baroque era, and Impressionism, span three dedicated galleries in the Ballinger Wing, highlighting the development and evolution of techniques that allowed artists to depict three-dimensional space on two-dimensional surfaces in new ways. Featured artists in these installations include Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, Master of Astorga, Camille Pissarro, Gustave Courbet, Sean Scully, Pierre Augustin Renoir, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, and more, including a new acquisition to the PhxArt Collection by Farraday Newsome.
Throughout the Ballinger Wing, Curated Encounters sections offer deep insight into the work of Arizona artist Ed Mell and George Elbert Burr—both of whom had strong ties to Arizona and Phoenix Art Museum—as well as the Museum’s collection of prints and drawings.
Ed Mell: In the Studio
Born in Phoenix, Ed Mell was engaged in Arizona’s arts community for more than 50 years, establishing his studio blocks away from Phoenix Art Museum. He became known for his use of vibrant color and angular compositions depicting monumental cloud formations, geologic strata, and desert life of the Colorado Plateau and Sonoran Desert. At the time of his death in 2024, Mell left behind a studio filled with small-scale paintings and works on paper. Ed Mell: In the Studio presents for the first time a selection of oil studies and works on paper made from 1974 through 2023 that have never been on view to the public, offering unprecedented insight into Mell’s process and his final paintings.
George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings
The Museum’s Orme Lewis Gallery reopens in the Ballinger Wing as a dedicated space for the presentation of prints and drawings, one of the largest yet least exhibited parts of the PhxArt Collection, which includes nearly 5,000 original sketches, watercolors, ink and paint on paper, and editioned prints by artists working in a wide range of media and printmaking techniques.
The reopened Orme Lewis Gallery premieres a Curated Encounter highlighting the prolific career of American painter and printmaker George Elbert Burr, who is best known for his depictions of high desert landscapes across Arizona, Colorado, and Southern California. During his lifetime, Burr made approximately 25,000 prints from an estimated 367 plates, and nearly 500 of his prints and watercolors are in the PhxArt Collection. George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings features more than 50 prints by the artist, who was instrumental in founding the Phoenix Fine Art Association and in the community-building efforts that led to the establishment of PhxArt in 1959. Although less recognized than his European predecessors, Burr’s etchings have been exhibited alongside those of revolutionary printmaker Albrecht Durër and revered Golden Age artist Rembrandt van Rijn, presenting resolutely American subjects that prompt close observation.
Philip C. Curtis (1907–2000) is one of Arizona’s most celebrated artists. After helping establish the state’s first art center through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and making Scottsdale his lifelong home, Curtis created dreamlike narratives inspired by the circus, entertainment, and his turn-of-the-century childhood.
In the late 1990s, PhxArt established the Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis, which opened in 2001 as a permanent space to celebrate the artist’s work. Today, the Museum continues to honor and steward his legacy. Newly relocated to the Ballinger Wing, the reimagined Ullman Center features paintings from the PhxArt Collection alongside archival materials from Curtis’ personal archives to deepen understanding of the artist’s process.
The Thorne Miniature Rooms are created at an exact scale of one inch to one foot. Conceived by Narcissa Niblack Thorne (1882–1966), who created nearly 100 miniature rooms in her lifetime, they present living spaces rooted in the traditions of 18th-century Europe and the simplicity of the American colonial period. The first set of rooms were exhibited at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. In the 1960s, Thorne’s son Niblack, a Phoenix-based civic leader, facilitated the collaborative restoration and donation of 16 original rooms to PhxArt. With the Ballinger Wing renovation, Museum guests can once again explore these captivating worlds in miniature, with new interpretative texts and a refreshed modern design aesthetic that revitalizes the visitor experience.
For high-resolution imagery and to request interviews regarding the James K. Ballinger Wing, please contact the Communications Office at press@phxart.org.
About the Exhibitions
The inaugural installation of the James K. Ballinger Wing, an initiative honoring the historic collections of Phoenix Art Museum and the visionary leadership of Director Emeritus James K. Ballinger, was made possible by generous gifts from the Virginia M. Ullman Foundation and the Kemper & Ethel Marley Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation, Cathie Lemon, the Men’s Arts Council, and Harry and Rose Papp.
The installation in the Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. It is made possible by the Virginia M. Ullman Foundation.
Installations of American Art and Art of the American West in the Tooker and Wayland galleries are organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO.
The installation in the Kemper & Ethel Marley Gallery for Art of the American West is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. It is made possible by the Kemper & Ethel Marley Foundation.
Ed Mell: In the Studio in the Woodyard Gallery is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Olga Viso, the Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs. It is presented by the Kemper & Ethel Marley Foundation.
George Elbert Burr: The Desert Etchings is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Olga Viso, the Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.
The installation of Viceregal Art of Latin America in the Astorga Gallery is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by JoAnna Reyes, PhD, Adjunct Curator for Art of the Americas. It is made possible by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation.
Installations of European Art in the Harrington, Sukhman, and Stegall galleries are curated by Rachel Zebro, Associate Curator of Collections.
All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin.
Entrance into the James K. Ballinger Wing is included in general admission for the public. Admission is free for Museum Members and youth aged 5 and younger. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix, and First Fridays from 5 – 8 pm, made possible by APS and Lexus, with additional support from Arizona Community Foundation. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.
About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.
Need further assistance?
Please call Visitor Services at 602.257.1880 or email
|
Holiday News: Aside from regular Museum hours, The Museum Store is NOW OPEN Mondays + Tuesdays all December for your shopping needs! |