Des Moines Art Center

Spend your Saturday at the Art Center! 🧡✨
First, enjoy complimentary mimosas at the Museum Shop's customer appreciation event, Mimosa Morning, starting at 10 am. Shop new and unique finds + Art Center members receive 20% off!

Next, grab lunch at the Art Center Café. Sit down and enjoy a delicious meal, or grab a quick coffee and fabulous la mie pastry. 😋🥐 (10% off for members!)

Finally, listen and learn during our free guided tour from 1 -2 pm about highlights in the Des Moines Art Center's permanent collection. This tour offers a unique journey through our galleries, featuring a selection of timeless paintings, sculptures, and more.

Summer break is here, and only a few of the Art Center's popular week-long summer camps are still available! Sign your child up for fun and creativity with camp themes like Impressionism, Cubism, & Pop Art, Eco Art, and Art Around the World. Register today to secure your spot: https://bit.ly/3tUNfic

Plan to join the Des Moines Art Center’s June Social Saturday event: Pride and Seek, Saturday, June 13 from 11 am - 2 pm!

During Des Moines’ annual Capital City Pride PrideFest, stop by the Art Center for a couple hours of fun, art making, and educational engagement. Enjoy crafts in the Art School studios, a scavenger hunt, a free screening of the “Last American Gay Bar,” a guided tour of LGBTQIA+ artists in the museum's collection, drag king storytime, treats in the Café, and so much more!

https://desmoinesartcenter.org/event/social-saturday-pride-and-seek/

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Des Moines Art Center will be sharing art from our collection throughout the year. These images will highlight American artists, history, and culture.

The son of an American father and a Colombian mother, Lari Pittman grew up in both Los Angeles and Colombia. He draws on elements of commercial advertising, decorative arts, and historic painting to produce work that is dense and psychologically jarring. "Untitled #3 (In the Garden)" is part of a series in which Pittman imagined each painting as a room in a house. Among the painting’s fragmented imagery are patterns that recall Polynesian prints and a worried Pinocchio figure eying a tiki torch (or perhaps a Molotov cocktail.) Pittman’s symbolism is never easily legible, though it may provoke strong emotion.

This work is currently on view in the lower Meier galleries.

Lari Pittman (American, born 1952)
Untitled #3 (In the Garden), 2005
Cel-Vinyl, acrylic, and alkyd on gessoed canvas over panel
Purchased with funds from the Coffin Fine Arts Trust; Nathan Emory Coffin Collection of the Des Moines Art Center, 2022.8

You are invited to join us at Art for Brunch! at the Des Moines Art Center. Come hang at this monthly meetup for adults of all ages and enjoy thoughtful conversation as we unpack a work of art in the museum galleries.

Register for free for Sunday, June 7: https://bit.ly/4ebcyRk

*While brunch is not provided as part of this free program, we encourage you to make it a date and pair this event with a visit to the Art Center Café!

Mini GurglePots are back in stock at the Museum Shop! Stop in to grab this adorable summer kitchen accessory. Shop online any time: https://desmoinesartcentershop.org/

ICYMI: See artist Simone Harris perform as Lady Blake Ophelia Stratum, followed by a Q&A with the 2026 Toni and Tim Urban Artist-in-Residence Christine Rebet.

Rebet's exhibition “Christine Rebet: Sound of Time” is on view in the Pamela Bass-Bookey and Harry Bookey Gallery through August 30.

"The Fall" Performance + Q&A with Simone Harris and Christine Rebet | Des Moines Art Center The 2026 Toni and Tim Urban Artist-in-Residence supported an incredible live performance of “The Fall,” an animated film by French artist Christine Rebet. Rebet’s film was created in collaboration with...

Creative Aging is designed for adults age 55+ to gather at the Art Center and learn about art.

In our Gallery Series, an Art Center docent leads the group in a collaborative discussion, focusing on one work of art in the museum galleries. Following the gallery talk, guests are invited to an informal social time with coffee and tea.

In our Studio Series, teaching artists work with the group, trying a variety of exploratory projects and techniques. In our July classes we will try abstract drawing and linocut printing.

Check the Art Center events calendar to register for upcoming sessions: https://bit.ly/46fgw4H

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Des Moines Art Center will be sharing art from our collection throughout the year. These images will highlight American artists, history, and culture.

Born in Seattle, Roger Shimomura is a third-generation American who, as a child, spent two years confined with his family in a camp in Idaho. During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated nearly 120,000 people of Japanese descent. Shimomura’s earliest memories stem from the time of his imprisonment. In the ironically titled "American Guardian," the silhouette of an American soldier with a rifle looms above the tiny figure of Shimomura on his tricycle. The piece draws from multiple graphic visual traditions including comic books, Pop Art, and Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Roger Shimomura (American, born 1939)
American Guardian, 2007
Lithograph on paper
Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jim and Ellen Hubbell, 2020.23
Photo: Rich Sanders