Gallery Hopping in Scottsdale: The Arts District Guide

Scottsdale's Arts District — centered on Main Street and Marshall Way in Old Town — operates as one of the strongest commercial gallery markets in the American Southwest, with over eighty galleries presenting work ranging from Southwestern representational painting to contemporary abstraction. Scottsdale Gallery Association members participate in Thursday evening art walks (5pm to 9pm) and the monthly Scottsdale ArtWalk year-round. The format allows efficient gallery-to-gallery movement and provides access to artists when works are in residence. The strongest galleries for serious collecting: Wilde Meyer Gallery specializes in contemporary Southwestern and Western American painting with an emphasis on artists working in bold color and abstraction. Cactus Gallery focuses on Pop Art and urban contemporary. Hummingbird Gallery is the best resource for historic and contemporary Pueblo and Navajo pottery. The outdoor sculpture garden along Marshall Way displays large-scale works by regional and national artists in a public setting that allows contemplation without the gallery transaction context. Gallery hopping in Scottsdale benefits from arriving with an agenda: know which two or three galleries you most want to see, and allow the rest of the evening to develop from there.