Pensacola Museum of Art Property

407 South Jefferson Street., Pensacola, FL 32502

Included with our unified admission. To learn more about the current exhibits, programs and classes see the Pensacola Museum of Art. 

The University of West Florida Pensacola Museum of Art augments the academic and community missions of the University and the UWF Historic Trust Museums by promoting an open and inclusive space of discovery and dialogue rooted in art, ideas and culture. We aim to facilitate the preservation, understanding, and engagement of visual culture for audiences in the Northwest Florida region and beyond through our permanent collection, interpretive programs, a vital and dynamic exhibition schedule, academic research and education.

On Exhibit

Coming Soon!

Celebrate 70: A History of Collecting 

June 7, 2024 - January 5, 2025

2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the Pensacola Museum of Art becoming an art center in Pensacola. Seven decades ago, members of the local chapter of the American Association of University Women envisioned a venue to exhibit traveling art exhibitions, offer art classes for both children and adults, and provide a community space for public meetings, lectures, and films. In 1954 they leased the vacant, historic City of Pensacola Jail and formed the Pensacola Art Association. The group established the Pensacola Museum of Art (PMA) in 1982 and purchased the building from the city in 1988. In 2016, the museum entered into a gift agreement with the University of West Florida to transfer the museum to the university. The PMA is now part of the University of West Florida Historic Trust.

This exhibition highlights the PMA’s permanent collection of international, national, and regionally acclaimed artists. Since its inception, the museum has built a collection of modern and contemporary art from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. As a community museum, collecting art is vitally important to our mission of enriching the lives of locals and visitors. Each artwork functions as a “link in the chain" to inspire creativity, facilitate an understanding of art history, and give life to beautiful, aesthetic experiences. Museum staff are stewards of the collection and are charged with protecting and expanding this valuable cultural resource to benefit the citizens of Pensacola and future generations. 

More than seventy artists are included in the exhibition with featured works by Francisco Goya, Milton Avery, John James Audubon, Henri de Touluse-Lautrec, Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Henri Matisse, Philip Guston, Clementine Hunter, Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Alex Katz, Käthe Kollwitz, Erté, Louise Nevelson, Philip Pearlstein, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Fairfield Porter, Linda Benglis, Norman Rockwell, and Miriam Schapiro. Through these works, the exhibition will provide a survey of modern and contemporary styles and periods including, Cubism, Realism, Pop Art, Non-objective Art, Folk Art, and Illustration.

Collections Mission Statement

The University of West Florida Pensacola Museum of Art stewards a growing collection of modern and contemporary art of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. The museum collects work in all media, with an emphasis on works on paper. The Museum’s priority is to strategically grow the collection in these areas through purchases, gifts, and bequests. The PMA subscribes to a policy of selective acquisition with the understanding that the stature of the Museum depends upon the quality of the permanent collection that it acquires and maintains. A prospective addition to the Collection, therefore is to be judged from the standpoint of aesthetic quality, educational or historic value, and support of the museum’s mission and vision. The goal should be excellence, not the size of the Collection.