Hammer Museum UCLA: A Hub for Art, Culture, and Ideas
The Hammer Museum stands as a dynamic institution championing art and artists who challenge conventional perspectives, ignite imaginations, and inspire societal change. More than just a space for aesthetic experience, the Hammer provides profound insight into critical cultural, political, and social issues, sharing artists' unique perspectives on the world. As a vibrant intellectual and creative nexus, the Hammer is fueled by a diverse array of exhibitions and programs, including lectures, symposia, film series, readings, and musical performances, all designed to spark meaningful encounters with art and ideas.
A Museum's Evolution: From Private Collection to Public Institution
The Hammer Museum opened its doors to the public in November 1990. It was founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, and designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Initially financed by Occidental, the museum was built adjacent to the Corporation’s international headquarters in Westwood. At its inception, the museum showcased Dr. Hammer’s personal collections, which included old master and nineteenth-century European paintings and drawings, as well as a collection of works on paper and paintings by Honoré Daumier and his contemporaries. The museum also featured galleries for traveling exhibitions.
In 1992, the Hammer Museum began negotiations with its neighbor, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to transfer the management and operations of the institution. By April 1994, the partnership with UCLA was formalized. The University relocated its collections and the staff of the Wight Art Gallery and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts to the Hammer the following year. The Museum also assumed responsibility for the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA. Henry Hopkins, then director of the Wight gallery and professor in the Department of Art, became director of the Museum until his retirement in 1998.
In 1999, Ann Philbin was appointed director, developing a strong institutional identity and earning the museum a national and international reputation for thematic contemporary exhibitions, scholarly historical exhibitions, and contemporary artists’ projects. During her tenure, the Hammer Contemporary Collection was established, which now holds over 4,500 artworks. Philbin also oversaw significant renovations to the museum’s building, including the completion of the 300-seat Billy Wilder Theater, a museum café, renovated galleries and public spaces, and the transformation of the museum's facade. Zoë Ryan became the Hammer's director in 2025, leading an institution known for its acclaimed Made in L.A.
Navigating Your Visit: Access, Parking, and Policies
When arriving at the museum, visitors can find the member line for immediate entry, and are encouraged to use their digital membership card for a streamlined visit. Construction for the Metro Purple Line expansion may impact traffic on Wilshire Blvd., so visitors should follow posted traffic signs and allow extra time to arrive at the museum.
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Convenient self-parking is available under the museum. Parking entrances are located on the east side of Westwood Boulevard (northbound) or on the west side of Glendon Boulevard (southbound), between Wilshire Boulevard and Lindbrook Drive. Rates are $8 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $22 daily maximum.
The Hammer Museum requires visitors to check items larger than 12” x 6” x 12” (including purses, bags, and backpacks) at the welcome desk. The Hammer may refuse to accept other items at its discretion and is not responsible for items held at coat check. The Hammer Museum welcomes visitors to take non‐flash, personal‐use photography except where noted. For the safety of the art, pens and markers are not permitted within the galleries. Trained service animals are welcome in all spaces throughout the museum.
The Hammer's Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
The Hammer is dedicated to diversity and inclusion. In 2010, the Hammer announced its inaugural biennial devoted exclusively to Los Angeles artists. Though the museum has routinely featured California artists as part of its ongoing exhibition program, the Made in L.A. series has emerged as an important and high-profile platform to showcase the diversity and energy of Los Angeles as an emerging art capitol. Organized by Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood, Hammer curator Ali Subotnick, LAXART director and chief curator Lauri Firstenberg, LAXART associate director and senior curator Cesar Garcia, and LAXART curator-at-large Malik Gaines, the inaugural Made in L.A. in 2012 featured work by 60 Los Angeles artists in spaces throughout the city including the Hammer Museum itself, LAXART, and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Art Park. The second iteration of Made in L.A. in 2014 took over the entire space of the museum to feature work by more than 30 different artists and collectives.
Hammer Museum's Diverse Collections
The Hammer Museum manages five distinct collections: The Hammer Contemporary Collection, the collection of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, the Armand Hammer Collection, and the Honoré Daumier and Contemporaries Collection.
The Hammer Contemporary Collection
Inaugurated in 1999, the Hammer Contemporary Collection is the museum's collection of modern and contemporary art. The collection includes works on paper, primarily drawings and photographs, as well as paintings, sculpture, and media arts. The Contemporary Collection houses works from artists, including many active in Southern California from 1960 to the present. The 2009 exhibition Second Nature: The Valentine-Adelson Collection at the Hammer exhibited selections from Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson's gift to the Hammer Contemporary Collection. In 2012, the Hammer showcased selections from the Susan and Larry Marx Collection. The exhibition was made possible by a substantial gift from longtime museum supporters Susan and Larry Marx and includes more than 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by over 100 international artists from the post-World War II period. Notable recent acquisitions to the Hammer Contemporary Collection include Suzanne Lacy's Three Weeks in May (1977), as well as major works by Lisa Anne Auerbach, Fiona Connor, Bruce Conner, Jeremy Deller, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Friedrich Kunath, Tala Madani, Allan McCollum, Robert Overby, Martha Rosler, Sterling Ruby, Allen Ruppersberg, Barbara T. Smith, and Catherine Opie.
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The UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts
The UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts is one of the largest collections of works on paper in the country. In 1988 the Grunwald Center received a bequest of over 850 landscape drawings and prints from the collection of Los Angeles-based architect Rudolf L. Baumfeld. The Baumfeld Collection includes important examples of European landscapes from the 16th to 20th-centuries and includes pure landscapes, as well as views of architectural ruins and urban scenes. The Eunice and Hal David Collection, bequeathed to the Grunwald Center by lyricist Hal David and his wife Eunice, is a collection of 19th and 20th-century drawings by European and American artists. Selections from the collection were exhibited at the Hammer in 2003. The 2014 exhibition showcased works from the Elisabeth Dean Collection of 19th and 20th-century works on paper. The Grunwald Center is also home to several important collections of Los Angeles-based contemporary artists. The Grunwald Center's collection features over 1,000 works by Sister Corita Kent, an influential pop printmaker and social justice activist, including rare preparatory studies and sketchbooks. Additionally, the Grunwald maintains an archive of the first twenty years of June Wayne's influential Tamarind Lithography Workshop, offering a rare overview of contemporary print-making in Los Angeles.
Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden
The Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA was inaugurated in 1967 and dedicated to the eponymous chancellor of the university. The 72 object collection comprises works by Deborah Butterfield, Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Auguste Rodin, and David Smith.
The Armand Hammer Collection
The Armand Hammer Collection is a small selection of European and American paintings, drawings, and prints that formed the original impetus for the foundation of the Hammer Museum. Selections from the collection are on permanent display in the Hammer Museum's third floor galleries. Highlights of the collection include: Juno (ca. 1665-1668) by Rembrandt van Rijn, The Education of the Virgin (1748-1752) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, El Pelele (ca. 1791) by Francisco Goya, Salome Dancing before Herod (1876) by Gustave Moreau, and Dr. Vincent van Gogh. Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889.
The Honoré Daumier and Contemporaries Collection
The Honoré Daumier and Contemporaries Collection at the Hammer Museum is one of the most important collections of Daumier works outside France. Highlights from the Daumier and Contemporaries Collection include Daumier's Le passé - Le present - L'avenir (1834), Un Avocat Plaidant, (ca. 1843-1848).
The Billy Wilder Theater
The Billy Wilder Theater opened at the Hammer Museum in late 2006, after a $5 million gift from Audrey L. Wilder, the widow of Billy Wilder, enabled the museum to resume building a 300-seat theater left unfinished at Armand Hammer's death. Its 2006 opening coincided with the centennial of Wilder's birth.
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Programs and Initiatives
The Hammer Museum hosts over 300 programs throughout the year, from lectures, symposia, and readings to concerts and film screenings. Popular series include a weekly meditation program, the Libros Schmibros book club, and the Hammer Conversations which place major cultural, political, and intellectual leaders in dialog with one another. In conjunction with the inaugural Made in L.A. exhibition in 2012, the Hammer offered the first iteration of the Mohn Award. The award originally consisted of a catalogue and a $100,000 cash prize and was decided by public vote after a jury of experts narrowed the 60 participants to five finalists. In 2014 the Hammer announced it was offering three awards in conjunction with Made in L.A. 2014: The Mohn Award ($100,000), the Career Achievement Award ($25,000)-both of which are selected by a professional jury-and the Public Recognition Award ($25,000), which is awarded by popular vote among exhibition visitors.
Hammer Museum: A Timeline of Key Events
The museum was founded by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, as a venue to exhibit his extensive art collection, at the time valued at $250 million. A Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for nearly 20 years, Hammer withdrew from a non-binding agreement to transfer his paintings to LACMA after disagreements regarding how his collection would be displayed.
Hammer died less than a month after his namesake museum opened to the public in November 1990, leaving the fledgling institution mired in litigation over its financing and prompting new legal battles regarding the disposition of Hammer's estate. While the museum's operating budget was provided by a $36 million annuity purchased by Occidental Petroleum, questions remained regarding the future of the museum's collections and the role that the Hammer family would play in its administration.
In 1994, the Regents of the University of California entered into a 99-year operating agreement with the Armand Hammer Foundation to assume management of the museum, which afforded the fledgling institution a measure of stability. In 2001, Hammer Foundation president Michael Armand Hammer threatened to trigger a contract clause establishing the museum with University of California regents, giving it the right to reclaim the collection and some endowment funds, if strict donation rules were breached.
In 2006, architect Michael Maltzan designed the Billy Wilder Theater and the museum's café. Michael Maltzan Architecture also designed the John V. Tunney Bridge, which opened in February 2015. The pedestrian bridge, named in honor of John V. Tunney, connects the museum.
In 2017, the Hammer opened its renovated third-floor galleries; in 2018, it debuted a newly designed courtyard performance space along with a gallery for new media art. The Annenberg Terrace for education, installations and programming, featuring ping pong tables and couches, opened in 2019.
Leadership and Governance
In 1994, Henry Hopkins, then director of the Wight gallery and professor in the Department of Art at UCLA, became director of the museum. He served in that position until his retirement in 1998. In 1999 Ann Philbin, previously director of The Drawing Center in New York, was named director. Philbin led the museum for 25 years until her retirement in November 2024.
Michael Armand Hammer is Chairman Emeritus, and Armie Hammer and Viktor Armand Hammer are Honorary Directors. Michael Rubel serves as President, Nelson C. Rising serves as Vice President, and Steven A. Olsen serves as Treasurer. Under Chair Marcy Carsey, the Hammer's Board of Directors also includes Heather R. Axe, Renée Becnel, Gene Block, Lloyd E. Cotsen, Eric Esrailian, Erika J. Glazer, Manuela Herzer, Larry Marx, Anthony Pritzker, Lee Ramer, Kevin L. Ratner, Chip Rosenbloom, Steven P. Song, John V. Tunney, Kevin Wall, John Walsh, and Christopher A. Waterman. Members of the Board of Overseers include artists Barbara Kruger and Lari Pittman.
In 1994, the Regents of the University of California entered into a 99-year operating agreement with the Armand Hammer Foundation and assumed management of the Hammer Museum, with the foundation retaining some control, including a "reversionary clause," granting the foundation rights to reclaim the art collection and some of the endowment funds. The museum had long desired to eliminate these clauses. Operating money came from a bond portfolio, UCLA's existing art budgets, private donations, and revenue from the museum.
On January 19, 2007, the Hammer Museum and the Armand Hammer Foundation agreed to dissolve their relationship, dividing the remaining 195 objects which founded the museum; the foundation retaining 92 paintings valued at $55 million, while the museum retaining 103 objects, valued at $250 million.
In addition, the Hammer Museum's annual Gala in the Garden serves as a fundraiser for the museum.
Deaccessioning and Acquisitions
In 1994, the Hammer Museum made headlines by selling Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $30.8 million. The Codex Leicester was one of Dr. Hammer's proudest acquisitions, purchased in 1980 for $5.12 million, and one which he unsuccessfully tried to rename the Codex Hammer. Most museums have collection guidelines for deaccessing art, which require the revenue from sales to be used for future acquisitions.
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