Western Colorado Center for the Arts

The Western Colorado Center for the Arts, also known as The Art Center, is located at 1803 North Seventh Street in Grand Junction, Colorado. Founded in 1953, the art center features four galleries, a gift shop, two enclosed courtyards, and several working studios and classrooms. The center contains a diverse permanent collection of mostly regional Western art. Programming includes two-dimensional and three-dimensional visual art and educational programs for children, adults and people with special needs.

The Art Center maintains over 450 works of art in its permanent collection, the majority of which are owned by the Art Center Foundation. The collection includes significant holdings in western landscape painting, Navajo rugs, and Ancestral Puebloan pottery. A rich assortment of media make up the collection, from oil and acrylic to bronze, serigraphs, lithographs and etchings. The collection features many local artists from the mid-20th century to the present day, including several Art Center founders. The two most represented artists are Alfred Nestler and Paul Pletka. A collection of Japanese art—mostly ukiyo-e prints but also drawings, bugaku masks and woodcuts by Shiko Munakata—was bequeathed to the ACF in 2015 by local legend Bill Robinson, the founder and tireless promoter of Colorado Mesa University's theater department.