Portland Art Museum
The oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest, now linked by a glass pavilion named for Mark Rothko.
Founded in 1892 as the Portland Art Association, this is the oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest and holds more than 50,000 works. Its brick main building on the South Park Blocks was designed by Pietro Belluschi and completed in 1932, an early and influential example of modern museum design in the region. To the north stands the Mark Building, a former Masonic temple of 1924 by Frederick Fritsch, which the museum converted for gallery use and opened to visitors in 1995.
In November 2025 the two buildings were joined by the Mark Rothko Pavilion, a glazed structure by Vinci Hamp Architects with Hennebery Eddy Architects that completed a wider campus project adding or upgrading around 100,000 square feet of public and gallery space. The pavilion is named under a long-term partnership with the children of Mark Rothko, who spent part of his youth in Portland and had his first solo exhibition at the museum. Collections span Native American art, Asian art, European painting, photography and graphic arts.
Highlights
- Glazed Rothko Pavilion linking the 1932 and 1924 buildings
- Main building by the Oregon modernist Pietro Belluschi
- Collection of more than 50,000 objects across all continents
- Long-term rotating display drawn from the Rothko family partnership
