Readers Share Their Favorite Places to See Art in California

Visitors in the American art gallery at the Haggin Museum.Credit…via Haggin Museum

The Haggin Museum in Stockton has an impressive art collection, particularly for a city that has seriously struggled for years.

The brick museum, tucked in a park in the Central Valley city, includes works by well-known painters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, George Inness and William Keith, as well as a California history collection that displays Native American art and artifacts from the gold rush and the dawn of agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley.

I visited the Haggin recently and was awed by grand 19th-century oil paintings of Yosemite Valley by Albert Bierstadt. One hung in the White House under President Ronald Reagan as a nod to his California roots, according to the museum.

The Haggin is one of the museums across California that readers have highlighted as great places to enjoy art. Today I’m sharing more suggestions, sorted by region and lightly edited for clarity.

You can read previous recommendations here, here and here. And feel free to send your own recommendation to [email protected]. Please include your name and the city where you live.

Northern California

The Museum of Northern California Art in Chico

“This is a fabulous art museum featuring artists from Northern California’s Oregon border to San Francisco. It has evolving shows and an interesting permanent collection. It is housed in a vintage veterans building in the center of Chico near other museums.” — Jean Marquardt, Chico