Tucson Museum Of Art

By alantvuong on December 17, 2019

I was recently in Tucson last month for Dusk Music Festival and wanted to check out a few attractions that was close to our hotel Red Lion Inn & Suites downtown. Tucson Museum Of Art was only a 12 minute walk/stroll and seemed interesting enough to warrant a visit.

About The Museum

Tucson Museum Of Art and Historic Block (TMA) was established in 1924 and is an art museum and art education institution located downtown Tucson in the Presidio district. It is quite large with about 74,000 square feet of exhibition space covering about a four-acre city block. There is a main contemporary museum and several historic homes that has been remodeled and used as galleries, a restaurant and school classes.

one of the buildings that has a few steps for the entrance

Getting There

We decided to go on a Sunday since we had time in the afternoon to do something before a late lunch. We were about to pay the $12 adult admission but was quickly told that the second Sunday of every month they offer free admission for everyone for Family Day at the museum. They also do free admission the first Thursday every month from 5 PM TO 8 pm, otherwise they are open from 10 AM to 5 PM from Tuesday to Sunday and are closed Mondays.

outside leading to other buildings containing art

We were also told by the lady at the front desk that the museum is under renovations right now and that wheelchair accessibility around the whole museum will be limited. The main exhibit will be wheelchair accessible and the next biggest gallery will have a couple steps to get in but once inside, it will be totally accessible. All the older homes that have been adapted to feature some of the collections will not be wheelchair accessible until the renovations are fully completed.

one of the buildings that has a few steps… waited outside while my buddy took pics inside

Exhibits

We checked out the main part of the museum which also held the biggest collection of art pieces. The main level was very spacious and it was really easy to wheel around in my wheelchair. At no point did I feel that I might accidentally bump into any art pieces or sculptures. There was a long spiral gradual ramp that led to the bottom of the building where the ramp itself had art collections to look at as we get to the bottom floor. The bottom floor was just like the upper floor where it was spacious and roomy for my wheelchair to look around.

lots of space to get around the museum

We were told that there was an elevator at the bottom floor to get us back up instead of using the long spiral ramp to get back up. My buddy opted to push me up the ramp instead of looking for a staff member to get access for the elevator. It was great to know that there is an elevator for those in manual wheelchairs who did not want to wheel up the long ramp.

the long ramp to get to the bottom floor

We attempted to check out the next main building just around the corner. This was the building that had a couple steps to get it in. I didn’t want to bother getting inside since the weather was nice and I didn’t mind waiting in the sun while my buddy went inside to take photos for me. We didn’t bother checking out the other exhibits since we were told that they wouldn’t be wheelchair accessible until renovations were done. We were just ready to leave and have lunch anyways.

checking out some of the paintings

So the main building was the main highlight of Tucson Museum of Art since that was the only really accessible building to visit. We still managed to spend over an hour looking at everything here and enjoyed what we saw. I would like to revisit this museum when all the renovations are complete and all the other buildings will be made wheelchair accessible. I definitely could see this whole museum taking a few hours to see everything once it is complete. I will have to try to revisit the second Sunday of the month to take advantage of free admission for Family Day at the museum.