The Kirkland Galleries

The Kirkland galleries encompass the entire main floor of the yellow and gold-clad building at 12th Avenue and Bannock. The collection spans three main areas of focus: the work of Vance Kirkland, international decorative arts, and fine art by Colorado artists.

Vance Kirkland (1904-1981) was a renowned Colorado-based painter who constantly sought to be creatively innovative. Over the course of his five-decade career, he developed five distinct periods of painting, from watercolor to oil paint and landscapes to vibrant dot paintings. Born and raised in Ohio, Vance Kirkland made Denver his home in 1929. He directed three art schools during his career, including the Kirkland School of Art (1932–1946), which is preserved as part of the Kirkland.

The second collection is an assemblage of internatonal decorative art—objects made to be used—spanning the Arts & Crafts Movement in the late 1880s to Postmodern design from the end of the twentieth century. Visitors can "time travel" through about 150 years of design, primarily from North America and Europe. Over time, art and design celebrate the newest, most rebellious, and cutting-edge ideas. This progression through time generally reflects a path toward greater simplification and abstraction.

Paintings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics by Colorado artists form the third collection. Ranging from the mid-1800s to the present, this collection includes many of Vance Kirkland’s colleagues and students, founders of the Denver Art Museum, and many other examples from realism to pure abstraction.