North Wing
Side by Side: Selections from The Bank of America Collection and The Hilbert Collection
The Hilbert Museum helps Bank of America celebrate its 100th anniversary in Orange County with this collaborative showcase of works from the bank’s corporate art collection, which includes many of the same California artists collected and shown by the Hilbert Museum: Millard Sheets, Erle Loran, Paul Wonner, Robert Frame and more.
North Wing
The Magic of Sesame Street
This exhibition celebrates the rich legacy of the groundbreaking PBS show with a colorful selection of original paintings and drawings from Sesame Street Magazine, spotlighting the artistry behind the magazine and the illustrators who captured the warmth, wit and visual magic of Sesame Street on every page.
North Wing
Banking on a Dream: Bank of America, the Disney Movies and the Birth of Disneyland
This exhibition honors Bank of America’s Centennial in Orange County and its historical support for Walt Disney’s films, including providing critical funding for his first full-length animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), and delves into the Bank’s role as an original corporate sponsor of Disneyland, even opening a branch of the bank on Main Street.
North Wing
Famous Restaurants in Edo: Japanese Ukiyo-e Prints from Mie Gallery
In 19th-century Edo, the restaurant was a stage for fashion, fame and the theater of daily life. Many of the era’s most prominent woodblock print artists were commissioned to illustrate prints of the most popular establishments. This exhibition, on loan from Mie Gallery, explores how woodblock prints immortalized top restaurants of this fascinating period in Edo.
North Wing
Spirits of Earth and Fire: Pueblo Pottery from the Hilbert Collection
This exhibition highlights the artistry of top Indigenous potters from the pueblos of the Southwest, including exquisite tiles by the legendary Nampeyo and elegant vessels by Sara Fine Tafoya, Monica Silva, and others. Formed from the land and fired with care, these ceramics embody centuries-old traditions passed down through generations of Pueblo artists.
Burra Community Room, North Wing
Happy Holidays: Selections from the Hilbert Christmas Collection
Make the spirits bright with this festive selection of holiday paintings, prints, illustrations, movie and TV art, and vintage Christmas card designs from the Hilbert Collection. Featured are enduring, colorful and whimsical works by Norman Rockwell, Ralph Hulett, Gladys Brown Edwards and Greg Hildebrand plus original art from Disney’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Chuck Jones’ beloved How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
North Wing
Art of the Airwaves: Portable Radios
Step back into the golden age of broadcast with this vibrant showcase of sleek, stylish and sometimes surprising portable radio designs from the 1940s through the 1960s. Featuring compact masterpieces that span the transition from tubes to transistors, this exhibition celebrates the ingenuity of American designers during the height of radio’s popularity.
North Wing
California Art from The Permanent Collection
Eight galleries in the North Building are dedicated to showcasing the vast variety of oil and watercolor paintings, prints and drawings in The Hilbert Collection, from the late 1800s through the Depression-era rise of the California regionalist Scene Painting style to the works of contemporary Golden State artists working today.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Sodaro South Wing
Emigdio Vasquez: The Godfather of Chicano Art
The art of Emigdio Vasquez (1939-2014) returns to the Hilbert Museum in what marks the largest and most comprehensive collection of his works ever exhibited. The exhibition features more than 50 oil paintings—many never before shown in public—drawn from the collections of Vasquez’s family and other devoted collectors, and traces his artistic evolution.
Sodaro South Wing
Cabinets of Wonder: The Art of Ralph Allen Massey
Enter the witty, wildly imaginative world of Los Angeles painter Ralph Allen Massey, who has been devoted to exploring the quirks, memories and visual poetry of American pop culture. Each work functions as a miniature “cabinet of wonder,” inviting visitors to linger, decode hidden jokes and references, and rediscover cultural icons that shaped generations.
Sodaro South Wing
Route 66 – Happy 100th Birthday to America’s Mother Road: Paintings by Joan Gladstone
Celebrate the centennial of America’s most iconic highway as artist Joan Gladstone captures the spirit and nostalgia of historic Route 66 – the “Mother Road” that stretches 2,400 miles, from Chicago to Santa Monica. This exhibition showcases 18 vivid contemporary oil paintings of the legendary road and its bold, colorful signage.