Joslyn Art Museum

George Joslyn came to Omaha and built a fortune in the newspaper printing business, becoming one of the city's wealthiest men. When he died in 1916, his widow Sarah resolved to honor him with a lasting gift to the community they had prospered in. She commissioned a grand art museum and gave it to the people of Omaha, and it opened in 1931 in the depths of the Great Depression as a beacon of beauty in hard times.

The building she paid for is itself a treasure. Faced in pink Georgia marble and rich with Art Deco carving and geometry, it is considered one of the finest examples of the style in the region. At its center rises the marble Fountain Court, a soaring, light-filled hall that has served for generations as the heart of Omaha's cultural life.

In 1832 a German naturalist prince, Maximilian of Wied, set out up the Missouri River to study the land and its peoples, and he brought with him a gifted young Swiss painter named Karl Bodmer. Over the next two years Bodmer produced hundreds of watercolors and sketches, portraits of Mandan, Hidatsa, Blackfeet, and other Native leaders, along with landscapes, villages, and wildlife, all rendered with striking accuracy.

The expedition traveled just before smallpox and settlement transformed the upper Missouri forever, so Bodmer's images preserve a world that was about to change utterly. The Joslyn holds this extraordinary body of work, one of the most valuable and historically important collections of Western art anywhere, and rotates selections into view. For the Native nations depicted, the portraits are a precious record of ancestors and a vanished way of life.

Beyond Bodmer, the Joslyn tells the story of the American West through the eyes of the artists who followed. Works by painters and sculptors who traveled and portrayed the frontier, its landscapes, its peoples, and its myths, fill the Western galleries, making the museum a place to think about how the West was imagined as well as lived.

The collection reaches far beyond the region, too, with European old masters, American works, ancient and non-Western art, and modern and contemporary pieces. That range means a visitor can trace a line from the antiquities through Renaissance and Impressionist paintings to twentieth-century abstraction, all under one pink-marble roof on the edge of the Great Plains.

The Joslyn is designed to be enjoyed slowly. The Fountain Court makes a natural pause between galleries, and the building's Deco detailing rewards a wandering eye as much as any painting. Special exhibitions come and go, but the permanent collection alone justifies a visit, so it is worth budgeting time to see it properly.

The museum sits within easy reach of the rest of Omaha's attractions. Downtown's Old Market, a district of restored brick warehouses full of shops and restaurants, and the Missouri riverfront parks are only minutes away, making the Joslyn an easy anchor for a full day in the city.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.