Plan Your Visit
The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State is located on the University Park campus. Admission is always free. Check-in is via our Visitor Services at the front desk. Click here to plan your visit!
Closed Monday and some holidays
Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, Noon to 5 p.m.
CLOSED – Thanksgiving Break – Thursday, November 24, and Friday, November 25
CLOSED – Winter Break – Friday, December 23, 2022 through Monday, January 2, 2023
The Palmer Museum closes early on Wed, 11/23, at 4 p.m. and is closed Thurs, 11/24, and Fri, 11/25.
Now on View
Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at Fifty
September 23-December 18, 2022
Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor
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The Art of Remembering: A Selection of Gifts
August 26-December 18, 2022
Special Exhibitions Gallery, Second Floor
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Designed for the Future: The New Palmer Museum of Art at the Arboretum
October 15-May 14, 2023
Special Exhibitions Gallery, First Floor
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NEW Palmer Museum
The Palmer Museum of Art is constructing a new museum within the Arboretum at Penn State to replace the current building on Curtin Road. The innovative new Palmer will be a larger facility that features education spaces, including a teaching gallery, flexible event spaces, and nearly twice the exhibition space of the current museum, allowing for expanded student, faculty, and public access to Penn State’s growing collection of 10,260 works of art.
To access information about the new Palmer Museum of Art and the Arboretum at Penn State, please click to view the new fly-through animation of the new museum or visit our online media room below.
Online Media Room
Events
See below for upcoming events at the Palmer Museum or click below for our full Events Schedule.
Wednesday, November 9, 5:00 p.m. <-- Updated time!
Lecture Webinar: Past, Future, and Fantasy at the “Happiest Place on Earth”Register here!
Thursday, November 10, 2:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk: Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at Fifty
Sunday, November 27, noon–5:00 p.m.
Museum Store Sunday and Vintage Ornament Sale
Thursday, December 1, 5:00–8:00 p.m.
Art After Hours: Winter BreakUpcoming Exhibitions
Conversations across the Collection
January 7-May 14, 2023
Snowiss Galleries, First Floor
As the Palmer Museum of Art begins the transition to its future home at the Arboretum at Penn State, its second-floor galleries will close in January 2023. The galleries on the first floor of the museum will remain open until May and the Snowiss Galleries of American Art will undergo a major reinstallation. The result, Conversations across the Collection, will feature a diverse roster of American artists from a range of eras. The reorganization brings together both visitor favorites and objects rarely on view to invite discussion through the juxtaposition of styles, viewpoints, and time periods. For example, Benjamin West’s Venus and Adonis (c. 1799) and Violet Oakley’s Venus Rising from the Sea (1940), painted more than a century apart, represent Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, in vastly different ways, revealing new dialogues between past and present. The unexpected pairings between the paintings, prints, photographs, and sculpture on view in Conversations across the Collection are organized into sections, among them: abstraction; the American West; multi-figured urban scenes; mother and child depictions; still lifes; and domestic interiors. The exhibition also incorporates several recent additions to the collection, including paintings by Ernie Barnes, Beverly McIver, Jenny Morgan, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art
Learn & Teach
Connect with the Palmer Museum’s diverse collections and exhibitions through tours, programs, and resources for learners of all ages.
Want to be a part of the art? Join+Give to enrich the Palmer today!
The Pennsylvania State University requires adherence to its policies at all times while on Penn State property or attending University events. Penn State has issued rules and precautions which follow, or may in some cases exceed, guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. By attending or participating in this program, event, or activity, you agree to adhere to such guidance and policies, you acknowledge the risk of being exposed to or infected by COVID-19, and you assume any and all such risk.
Click here to read Penn State’s updated pandemic protocols.
Your presence at any Palmer Museum program, event, exhibition, or activity indicates your agreement to adhere to all university policies, including health and safety policies such as masking if applicable, and your acknowledgment that you are voluntarily participating. You further acknowledge the contagious nature of COVID-19 and assume any and all risk of exposure to or infection by it or any variant thereof, including, without limitation, personal injury, illness, severe complications, permanent disability, and/or death.