The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, is one of the oldest art museums in the western United States, built around the collection of a local judge and his wife. It pairs a grand 19th-century mansion with a modern gallery wing, and it is known for its California art and its European drawings and paintings.

The story behind it

The museum began as the private passion of Edwin Crocker, a wealthy lawyer and judge, and his wife Margaret. In the late 1860s the couple made a long trip through Europe, buying paintings and drawings as they went. Back in Sacramento, they built an art gallery attached to their family home, and it became a centre of local social life. It hosted benefits for community groups and welcomed notable guests, among them, according to local tradition, President Ulysses S. Grant and Oscar Wilde.

After Edwin's death, Margaret turned the house and its collection into a public museum, so that Sacramento could share the art. That founding collection is still part of the museum. Over the years it has grown to include one of the finest collections of Californian art, along with international ceramics, sculpture and works by contemporary California artists, many of whom taught at nearby UC Davis.

What to look for

• The ornate Italianate exterior of the original Crocker mansion, which still looks like the grand family home it once was.
• The contrast between the Victorian building and the modern gallery wing, which opened in 2010 and shows how far the museum has grown.
• The California collection, which follows the state's art from the Gold Rush era through to contemporary artists.
• The European drawings and paintings that the Crockers collected themselves, which are the roots of the whole museum.

Tips for your visit

• Allow about 90 minutes to two hours inside if you like to read the labels, and longer if a special exhibition is on.
• You can go inside, but check current opening hours and ticket details on the museum's website before you set out.
• The museum sits downtown on O Street, so it combines easily with a walk to the Old Sacramento waterfront or the State Capitol area.
• Look at the outside of the building before you go in, in good daylight, to appreciate the facade and the older and newer parts side by side.

See it on a quest

Romantic Sacramento is a good way to see the Crocker Art Museum as part of a walk rather than a single stop. You reach it on foot as one place on a longer route through downtown, the app tells you about it when you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. There is no guide and no group to join, so you can start whenever suits you, and one ticket covers your whole group.