About Portland Art Museum

Portland Art Museum

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With the distinction of being the oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest, the Portland Art Museum (PAM) houses galleries dedicated to modern and contemporary art, photography, Native American art, graphic arts, and more.

With over 35,000 works of art, it is the region's most comprehensive visual arts resource.

The museum enters 2024 with a dynamic slate of exhibitions. From future-forward sneaker design to Impressionist masters and psychedelic posters, the exhibitions celebrate a wide range of artistic expression and offer visitors world-class experiences in the heart of downtown Portland.

Opening in March 2024, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is an exhibition that sneaker-loving citizens of Portland and visitors are sure to enjoy—offering not only physical objects but digital imaginings, design concepts, and futuristic visions.

Summer at the Museum brings French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, a stunning exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum featuring nearly 60 works of art from several renowned artists, opening in summer 2024. Pulling from the Museum’s deep collection of prints and drawings, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s will present more than 150 rock posters representing the leading artists and designers of the genre alongside nearly 20 fashion items of the era.

PAM will also host a strong set of critically acclaimed set of special exhibitions on view. The spectacular Africa Fashion (through February 18, 2024), from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and making its only West Coast stop at PAM, honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions. The exhibition offers a rewarding conversation with PAM’s expansive, powerful Black Artists of Oregon (through March 24, 2024), which celebrates the work of Black artists in our state over more than a century through an intergenerational tapestry of more than 200 artworks by 69 artists.

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Reviews & Ratings

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating based on 1191 reviews

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February 19, 2026

JasonHennig

Huge and Fun

The number one thing you have to know if you're visiting this museum is that it is HUGE. Expect upwards of 4 or more hours to actually see everything. That being said, there's a lot of fantastic art here that's more than worth taking time to see. Some of the wings are a bit confusing, so take your time and enjoy everything!
February 12, 2026

Joy C

Loved the art

I oil paint with a friend every week and we decided to get inspiration at the remodeled Portland Art Museum. It was lovely and since we went on the first Thursday of the month, it was also free. We loved the art which specifically focused on the Oregon and the Impressionists art work! So happy to see a couple of the Albert Bierstadt paintings and the cleaned up oil painting by Claude Monet of the Waterlilies.
January 29, 2026

KL K

an excellent museum

Portland Art Museum is an excellent museum with a well-curated and welcoming atmosphere. I visited during the Impressionism exhibition, and everything was very well organized and thoughtfully presented. The gallery spaces were comfortable, easy to navigate, and allowed plenty of room to enjoy the artwork. The museum is clean, calm, and professionally managed, making it a great place to spend time appreciating art. Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I would highly recommend visiting the Portland Art Museum.
January 23, 2026

Laura D

New Portland Art Museum

Now that construction is finished and crowds have normalized after the grand opening, I spent two days exploring the wonderful new exhibits and spaces. See the new exhibits for yourself.
January 16, 2026

mostly_happy_camper

Major renovation, major fail.

Recently opened a $111 million pavilion linking the two buildings. It's awful. A giant empty space with a long registration/admission desk and, in one corner, a few sofa like chairs in a small sitting area. Otherwise, absolutely barren empty, cold, somewhat forbidding glass-enclosed area where there used to be an open-air patio-type space. A wide open entrace way off this giant empty space leads to a large, brand-new cafeteria and, sharing space with it one one side, the museum shop. Once a real attraction where patrons and customers came to buy gifts, the shop is characterless. It has, maybe, one-quarter of the items, cards, apparel, and miscellaneous things as it used to display. And no "back room" where much-reduced articles were for sale. What on earth were they thinking?