Art Galleries in Berkeley

Berkeley's art scene is shaped by the University of California and by the political and countercultural history that has made this small East Bay city one of the most intellectually lively places in the American West. The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) presents one of the most ambitious university museum programs in the country, with a collection that includes major holdings in 20th-century American painting, Asian art, and the work of the Bay Area Figurative School. The Fourth Street and Elmwood gallery districts offer contemporary work in neighborhoods where serious collectors and working artists have coexisted for decades, and the city's proximity to San Francisco means Berkeley functions as the more accessible, less commercial side of one of America's great metropolitan art markets.