Step into the complex story of the American West
You enter the Autry Museum of the American West, in Griffith Park near the Los Angeles Zoo, and find yourself in front of paintings, firearms, baskets, textiles, and photographs that tell a deliberately unsimplified history. This is not a museum of myth. Founded in 1988, the Autry holds over 600,000 pieces of art and cultural objects that span the American West from multiple perspectives—indigenous peoples, settlers, women, queer communities, and others whose stories are often sidelined. The collection includes one of the most significant groupings of Native American materials in the United States, second only to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. Walk through and you encounter 21,000 objects in the main Griffith Park location alone: paintings, sculptures, costumes, textiles, historic firearms, tools, toys, and musical instruments that challenge what you think you know about the West.
What you actually see and do
- The Irene Helen Jones Parks Gallery of Art (renovated in 2013) organizes material thematically rather than chronologically. Paintings hang alongside crafts, photography, and video in new relationships. Three theme areas—Religion and Ritual, Land and Landscape, Migration and Movement—let you trace how these ideas shaped Western life.
- The Gamble Firearms Gallery (also redesigned in 2013) contextualizes firearms by their use and meaning: hunting and trapping, technological change, conservation efforts, and the West as it appeared in popular culture. You see objects not as isolated artifacts but as tools embedded in larger stories.
- Two mini galleries rotate exhibitions, so the museum changes with the seasons.
- Native Voices at the Autry presents new works by Native American, Alaska Native, and First Nation playwrights. Since 1995, this equity theater has been the only venue of its kind, staging over 34 full productions and more than 20 new play festivals. Performances happen throughout the year.
- The museum hosts lectures, film screenings, theater, festivals, and family events year-round, as well as Indigenous Pride LA LGBT+ Pride events (since 2019).
- A Resources Center, about eight miles away in Burbank, serves as a storage facility and ritual space where indigenous peoples can use items from the collection in ceremonies.
How to structure your visit
The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It also opens on select Mondays—Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples' Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, and Memorial Day. Plan to spend at least three hours to move through the Parks and Firearms galleries without rushing; the thematic organization invites lingering. Weekday mornings tend to be quieter than weekend afternoons. If a Native Voices production is running, build your day around it—these are not performances you'll find elsewhere. Food trucks are available on select days; call 323.495.4252 to confirm what's available when you visit. Parking is free.
Nearby in Griffith Park and Glendale
The Los Angeles Zoo sits directly across Western Heritage Way. Glendale's Peace Monument, Palmer Park, the Roslin Art Gallery, and the Glendale Transportation Center are all worth exploring if you're spending time in the area. You might also consider the Autry Institute for the Study of the American West, which conducts ongoing scholarship in Western history and the arts and sometimes opens its work to public engagement.
Start planning a visit by checking what exhibitions and programs are current, then arrive ready to spend an afternoon with a collection that refuses easy answers about who the American West belonged to and what it meant.