The Monterey Museum of Art an art museum located in Monterey, California. It was founded in 1959 as a chapter of the American Federation of Arts. The Monterey Museum of Art collects, preserves, and interprets the art of California from the nineteenth century to the present day. Notable holdings celebrate the heritage of Northern and Central California, and especially for early California images from the Carmel Art Colony.
The museum operates two facilities, one at 559 Pacific Street and the other at 720 Via Mirada . The Pacific Street location has eight galleries and houses the administrative and curatorial offices, and the Buck Education Center consisting of classrooms, a library and the Youth Gallery. In 1983, the Monterey Museum of Art acquired the historic estate of La Mirada, whose history reflects the heritage of the Monterey area. La Mirada was expanded with modern galleries and is used to present traveling exhibitions from other institutions, highlights of the museum’s permanent collection that include masters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and significant emerging artists of today such as Ingrid Calame.
Monterey State Historic Park is a historic state park in Monterey, California. It includes part or all of the Monterey Old Town Historic District, a historic district that includes 17 contributing buildings and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. The grounds include California's first theatre, and the Monterey Custom House, where the American flag was first raised over California.
The park is a group of restored historic buildings: the Custom House, the Larkin House, California's First Brick House, Colton Hall , Old Whaling Company, the Stevenson House, the First Theater, the Pacific House Museum, the Interpretive House, Casa del Oro, and Casa Soberanes. These houses display the cultural diversity that guided California's transition from a remote Spanish outpost in Las Californias province, to an agricultural Mexican Alta California territory, to U.S. statehood. These influential adobe houses made up California's earliest capital and were the site of the state's first constitutional convention.
Today the historic buildings retain their rich heritage, preserving an important part of Californian as well as Spanish, Mexican, and American history. Added to the adobe houses is the park's Interpretive Center and the Pacific House Museum. The park provides tours of the historic houses and museums for the general public. The 'Secret Gardens of Old Monterey' are part of the open-air museum for visitors. The Monterey State Historic Park Association is the non-profit association that works to support the park.
