Right at the entrance to beautiful Julia Davis Park and across from the Idaho State Museum, you can find the Boise Art Museum. The Boise Art Museum (or BAM for short) is a smaller museum, one you could easily fit in with a day at the nearby State Museum, Idaho Black History Museum, or Zoo Boise. I’d say it takes an hour or so to tour.
like the one in the Idaho State Museum
Boise Art Museum
When you walk into the Boise Art Museum, there’s a great gift shop immediately to your right. This is also where you can get your tickets. Straight ahead is a large atrium, and there are rooms and wings to either side.
During my visit, a lot of space was dedicated to artist Jacob Hashimoto. A huge site-specific piece called The Fractured Giant hangs from the ceiling in the central atrium. Made with rice paper circles and squares, you can walk underneath the sculptural collage and view it from many angles. In an alcove, a video featuring Hashimoto talking about gaming, art, and the pandemic plays. A room to one side has more of Hashimoto’s art with similar techniques used on a smaller scale.
Other exhibits include a collection that illustrates the ideas of color, shadow, shape, and form through painted artworks and sculptures. One wing is dedicated to a collection called “Re-framed,” illustrations of American life from a wide perspective, using different ideas of framing, from boxed dioramas to doors. One room features a collection of Asian art and pottery. The back of one wing features a kid’s section with examples of dynamic mixed-media pieces.
New Exhibits
What’s new since my visit last summer is a collection called “Myths, Fables, and Fortunes,” a collection of landscape art using the features of the natural environment of the northwest. And Katazome Today features modern artists using an ancient Japanese dying technique.
Behind the Boise Art Museum is a small, walled sculpture garden. It was closed during my visit due to some roof repairs, but you can kind of see it from outside.
Hours & Admission
The Boise Art Museum is open daily except for Mondays. Generally, hours are from 10 am to 5 pm, or from noon-5 pm on Sundays. The first Thursday of every month, they are open until 7 pm.
Admission to the museum is $9 for adults. For students in grades 1-12 and college students with ID, it’s $5. Seniors 62+ and active military with ID are $7. On first Thursdays (when the museum is open later) it’s pay what you can. And on the third Wednesday of each month, seniors age 62 and over can get in free.
Parking is free in Julia Davis Park. There’s a small lot in front of the museum, a larger lot nearer the State Museum, and another large lot nearer the zoo. A large parking lot for the public library is right across the street as well, with walk signals to cross at the intersection.
BONUS: Rose Garden
Directly behind the Boise Art Museum is a free public rose garden. If it’s in bloom, you definitely should not miss it! The roses are stunning. Some pink ones nearest the art museum focus on fragrance, and it is heavenly to sit on the benches on that end. Other roses have unique colors or stripes – or both! One set even had roses of different colors on one bush.
If you happen to be around Boise during the spring or early summer, it pays to visit more than once. When I arrived in mid-May, none of the roses were blooming yet. By the time I visited the Boise Art Museum on June 1, the roses had almost all bloomed, and by mid-June, some of the later bloomers had also come alive.
There’s plenty of parking around, benches to hang out on, and picnic facilities in the immediate area.
Suggested Touring
This whole side of Julia Davis Park is a joy to visit, especially in the summer. The Idaho State Museum, the Boise Art Museum, the Idaho Black History Museum, the Rose Garden, and Zoo Boise are all right here together. You could probably visit them all in one day if you hustle.
While I recommend taking your time in the zoo and the State Museum, if you only have one day I could see a morning at the zoo, a picnic lunch in the park preceded or followed by the Black History Museum (if you can catch it open), a walk through the rose garden and the Art Museum, then the rest of your afternoon at the State Museum. You might even have time to rent a paddleboat on the lake on the other side of the zoo, since they stay open a little later. Followed by dinner in town (Barbacoa if you’re fancy) that would be a pretty solid “Boise Tourist” day!
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