New Museum Brings Art To The Mid, East Valley

Whether you have your eye on sculptures or statues, art is closer to you than before. For the first time in 75 years, the Palm Springs Art Museum expanded and created a new location.

“This is like the icing on the cake for the city of Palm Desert,” Mayor Robert Spiegel said.

On the corner of Highway 111 and El Paseo, the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert brings art to a larger portion of the desert.

“We’ve been trying to get the people that lived in the east end of the valley to come out to us and it gets harder and harder and longer and longer and then we finally decided the only way it’s going to happen is if we could take it out to Palm Desert,” Helene Galen of the Museum Board of Trustees said.

It’s in the heart of the valley, and the heart of a shopping district. Just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the museum, local business owners rave about the location of the museum. It takes just minutes, walking or driving, to get to El Paseo, which is full of art galleries.

“I think it’s fabulous. Anything for the arts for our community is wonderful. It’ll bring people to the area, it’ll promote the arts. How can there be anything but positive things?” Steve Brennen, the owner of S.R. Brennen Gallery, said.

“It’s nice. I think it’ll add, I do. I think it’ll be wonderful,” Coda Gallery director Barbara Hill-Stanley said.

“It’s only going to bring people to the Galen, and then go down to El Paseo and buy their art,” Spiegel said.

Also, it’ll add people to an already bustling area.

“We also have the McCallum Theater in our city, we have the Living Desert in our City, and we have all the colleges in our city,” Spiegel added.

So the valley’s central city if full — and frosted.

“Like I said it’s the icing on the cake for us. I don’t think we need anything else,” Speigel said.