The Hammer Museum Free Admission Friday

Free Admission Friday at The Hammer Museum - see INFO below. The Hammer Museum opened to the public in November 1990. Founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the Museum was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Financed by Occidental, the Museum was built adjacent to the Corporations international headquarters in Westwood. At that time, the Museum featured galleries for Dr. Hammers collections old master paintings and drawings, and a collection of works on paper by Honore Daumier and his contemporaries as well as galleries for traveling exhibitions. Dr. Hammer passed away in December 1990, three weeks after the opening of the Museum leaving many spaces unfinished. In 1992, the Museum began negotiations with its neighbor, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to assume the management and operations of the institution. In April 1994, the partnership with UCLA was finalized and the following year the University relocated its collections and the staff of the Wight Art Gallery and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts to the Hammer. The Museum also assumed responsibility for the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, located at the north end of the UCLA campus. More Info below.