Yellowstone Art Museum

The largest contemporary art museum in Montana, housed in a modern building in downtown Billings. The collection focuses on art of the American West, particularly Montana and the northern plains, with strong holdings of 20th-century Western painting and significant works by Will James, Russell Chatham, and other regional artists who captured this landscape on canvas.

The permanent collection is split between the Western art and a more contemporary wing that shows local and national artists working today. Rotating exhibitions bring in touring shows from other institutions. The museum shop stocks quality art books and prints. Open Tuesday through Sunday; closed Monday.

things to do museum
A story
The museum began in 1964 when a group of Billings citizens converted the old Yellowstone County Jail into an art space — with the cells still intact as exhibition rooms. The jail building has since been absorbed into a larger complex, but the original conversion from county lockup to Montana's largest art museum says something about the city's quiet ambition.