The Seattle Art Museum — SAM — occupies a building on 1st Avenue designed by Robert Venturi, marked at street level by Jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man sculpture: a four-storey black steel figure that swings its arm once every few seconds, every day except Labour Day. The collection is strongest in American art, Northwest Coast Indigenous work, and African art, all of which are presented with real curatorial intelligence.
The Northwest Coast gallery is worth the admission alone: totem poles, masks, bentwood boxes, and ceremonial regalia representing the Haida, Tlingit, Kwakwaka'wakw, and other peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast. The contemporary galleries are extensive and regularly rotated. SAM also operates the Olympic Sculpture Park on the waterfront, free and open daily, and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill.