Occidental Fine Arts Center

A home for beautiful things.

A gallery and museum where meaningful art meets the public—and the studios, space, and programs artists need to make what comes next.

About the center Explore the building

Explore the building

Now on view · Free admission

Beautiful Things

Paintings, mechanical music, and objects from Seattle’s first century fill the public exhibition floors.

Explore the exhibition Plan a visit

First floor · Public welcome

Walk in from Occidental Avenue.

The street level is the public threshold: gathering, events, and the first view into the building. Start with this short orientation from the Beautiful Things soft launch.

First-floor video

Second floor · Exhibitions

Objects, paintings, and Seattle history.

Beautiful Things brings together the museum and antiques, the galleries, and The Seattle Story film.

First · Museum and antiques

Seattle 1850–1950

The city’s first century, brought into motion.

Watch The Seattle Story and explore the living historical map without leaving the exhibition chapter.

Watch the film Open the map

Then · Upstairs galleries

Upstairs galleries

Continue through the exhibition: paintings and gathering spaces follow the museum and antiques walkthrough.

Third floor · Artists at work

Studios, workshops, and ambitious work.

Seattle Prize fellows, experienced-artist workshops, and commissioned artists work on the studio floor.

Seattle Prize

A year of studio, stipend, and sustained work.

Workshops

High-level workshops for experienced artists.

Commission Artists

Painters creating meaningful commissioned work.

Restoration and reuse

Inside the making of the Occidental

Follow a historic Pioneer Square building as open floors became public galleries and working studios for serious art.

“I Built a Seattle History Museum in Pioneer Square | 1850–1950” · 9:53

How the place was made

Our mission

Made for the artists.
Open to the public.

The Conru Art Foundation invests in high-skill art development and supports Seattle's working artists through subsidized workshops, year-long fellowships, and meaningful commissions.

At Occidental we treat technical mastery as service: the highest skill in pursuit of the highest purpose. The studios, the gallery wall, and the workshops are all on one block in Pioneer Square.

About OFAC Our philosophy

A Seattle Art Prize Fellow at her easel beside a brick wall in her third-floor Occidental studio.

A Prize Fellow at her easel

The Occidental Fine Arts Center storefront in summer daylight on a tree-lined Pioneer Square block in Seattle.

Brick-walled main gallery at the Occidental Fine Arts Center with gilt-framed paintings hung salon style.

311½ Occidental Ave S · Pioneer Square

The building, and the work inside it.

A landmark Pioneer Square storefront restored into artist studios, a working gallery, and the workshop floor. Cast-iron columns, original brick, north light.

Sixteen working studios on the second and third floors, a salon-hung gallery on the main level, and a new street-level event space opening this summer. Fellows in residence and master-artist workshops year-round.