Art Galleries in Sedona

Sedona's red rock landscape - cathedral buttes and mesas of Permian sandstone rising 1,000 feet from the desert floor - has made it one of the most painted places in the American West, and the city's art scene has grown around that identity for more than a century. Plein air painting is the defining tradition here: the quality of the light, which filters through the red rock to cast a warm glow across the landscape at dawn and dusk, draws painters from across the country to work outdoors in the canyon country surrounding the city. Tlaquepaque Arts and Shopping Village, modeled on a traditional Mexican village, and the uptown gallery corridor along SR-89A contain more than 40 galleries showing work that ranges from traditional Western landscapes to contemporary painting and jewelry by Indigenous Southwest artists.

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Guides for Sedona

Art Among the Red Rocks

Sedona became an artist colony in the early 20th century when painters discovered that its extraordinary geology — the red rock formations, the cathedral buttes, the canyon light — offered subject matter unlike anything else in the American West. Today the town supports dozens of galleries serving a robust tourism economy and a substantial full-time collector community. Tlaquepaque Arts Village, built in the 1970s, remains the emotional center of Sedona's art world: a collection of galleries, studios, and restaurants housed in adobe buildings draped with bougainvillea and centered on a vine-shaded plaza. The Hillside Sedona shopping complex adds a more contemporary note with galleries specializing in glass, sculpture, and abstract painting. The Sedona Arts Center, founded in 1958, is among the oldest nonprofit arts organizations in Arizona and continues to present exhibitions, workshops, and events that connect working artists with the broader community. The town's reputation draws serious collectors from across the country, particularly during the cooler months of fall and spring when the desert light is at its most extraordinary.