UCLA Hammer Museum

Director's Welcome

The Hammer Museum is a unique, cutting-edge arts institution that connects the classics and the contemporary through its varied collections, wide-ranging exhibitions, and provocative programs.

The Museum is positioned-both physically and metaphorically-at the gateway between the city of Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The Museum is the entry through which the general public can gain access to the diverse riches of the University community. Meanwhile, through the programs and exhibitions of the Museum, UCLA students gain first-hand exposure to the larger world of creative human endeavors. UCLA's mandate of pursuing cutting-edge research within the sciences and the humanities is reflected in the Hammer Museum's renowned exhibitions and programs. We approach the arts with the same quest for knowledge, discovery, and understanding that guides the scientist, engineer, or anthropologist. We see it as our mission to pursue the margins, explore unknown territory, rediscover the familiar, and take risks.

I welcome you to this virtual presentation of the Hammer. I hope that this site will inform and engage you, and that it will prompt you to visit us physically. I promise you will find many marvelous and rewarding things.

Ann Philbin
Director