Art Galleries in Denver

Denver's Art Districts

Denver's art world is centered on two distinct districts that together give the city its creative identity. The Santa Fe Arts District, along South Santa Fe Drive, is the older of the two — a neighborhood of galleries, studios, and restaurants that has been the heart of Denver's Mexican-American arts community for decades and now hosts one of the country's largest monthly gallery walks on the first Friday of each month. The RiNo district, in the River North neighborhood northeast of downtown, is the newer and faster-growing scene — a former industrial area that has been transformed over the past decade into a dense cluster of galleries, studios, craft breweries, and creative businesses that represents the leading edge of Denver's contemporary art world. The Denver Art Museum, with its striking Frederic Hamilton Building designed by Daniel Libeskind, anchors the city's museum district alongside the Clyfford Still Museum — which holds the world's largest collection of that Abstract Expressionist master's work — and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The city's proximity to the mountain resort communities of Aspen, Vail, and Telluride extends its art world reach into the high country.