Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College is one of the most architecturally significant and programmatically ambitious regional art museums in the Mountain West, combining visual art galleries, performing arts programming, and art school education in a landmark Art Deco building that is itself a work of art. The building, designed by John H. Marsden and opened in 1936, is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in Colorado, with a distinctive facade that incorporates regional materials and Southwest motifs into a sophisticated modernist composition. Since its affiliation with Colorado College in 2015, the institution has expanded its resources and ambition while maintaining its commitment to the Colorado Springs community.

The permanent collection focuses on American art of the Southwest and Rocky Mountain region, with particular depth in the work of the New Mexico modernists who were active in the first half of the 20th century, including outstanding works by Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe who each worked in New Mexico during the period when its landscape first captured the attention of the American modernist avant-garde. The collection also includes significant holdings in Hispanic colonial art, Western American painting, and a collection of works by artists associated with the Broadmoor Art Academy, the predecessor institution that trained Colorado Springs's first generation of serious artists in the early 20th century.

The performing arts program presents dance, theater, and music in the building's historic theater, making the Fine Arts Center a genuine multi-disciplinary cultural institution rather than simply an art museum. The art school offers classes and workshops open to the community, extending the center's educational reach beyond Colorado College students. For art travelers moving between Denver and the Southwest, Colorado Springs is often bypassed, but the Fine Arts Center and the adjacent Cheyenne Mountain area, with its dramatic landscape that has inspired painters for more than a century, make a stop here worthwhile for anyone with serious interest in the art of the Rocky Mountain West.