Bashas Art Gallery

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This is a fantastic gallery of the old west depicted in all forms of art. An amazing collection of 3,000 pieces amassed by ED BASHA and shared to the public by his family. Don’t miss this hidden gem. Free to the public. Free parking.

Wonderful free museum of western art. Wide variety in quiet setting. Well worth a visit .i enjoyed the paintings but the firearms, bronze statues and baskets are there for those interested.

This gallery is one of the best western art gallery I’ve visited. It clearly rivals the Buffalo Bill museum in Cody!
A must visit in Chandler AZ!

One of the best kept secrets of the South East Valley is the Basha’s Art Gallery. One of the best collections of Western and Native American art in the Southwest. AND it’s FREE! Paintings, bronzes, katchinas and other artwork that have been built up over over the 20^th century.
My suggestion is to call ahead or check their website for opening hours, and be prepared to be amazed.

I am a passionate admirer of Western paintings and sculpture, and this collection is truly outstanding and contains some of my favorite work by Joe Beeler, Howard Terpning, Jim Reynolds and many other Western painters who continued classical/​realistic representational figurative and landscape painting at a time in the 20^th century when realism had gone completely out of vogue and the modern-​art movement had taken over all the art schools and university programs.
It is interesting to me that realism and many of the traditional methods of learning to draw and paint are now growing like wildfire in private ateliers and some university programs across America as a repudiation of multiple-​decades of journeying down the modern-​art movement. These cowboy artists needed no reform movement to bring them back — they never left the path of drawing and painting in a realistic style.
This collection has so many great paintings — it rivals most fully-​funded western art museums that I have visited. Basha was collecting at the perfect time to collect this work before the rest of the world caught on. If you love Western art, you owe it to yourself to see this collection.
(There are many things in the gallery besides paintings and sculpture — native American weaving, firearms, letters and more, that others here have commented on. I know less about these types of items so I leave commenting on them to someone else.)
Rob Talbert

Visited the Bashas Art Gallery, which is located in the corporate headquarters of the company, and in the Chandler, AZ area. It is a private collection of of Indian baskets, and southwestern art and sculptures. The Native American baskets are sorted by age and triibes, and we were told given to the Bashas family as gifts in return for the food given to them. Have never seen so many in one place; the workmanship is mind boggling.
The art collection is sorted by artist, and varies from traditional realistic representations of cowboys and Indians in the west and more modern abstract representations. Evidently, most if not all artists were personal friends of the Bashas family judging from the included correspondence, a lot of which are art works themselves. Including the correspondence was a stroke of genius; it made viewing the art collection all the more interesting.
Finally, there was also rifles, pistols, kachina figures and probably other items I’ve missed.
This is no small collection; we spent a couple of hours there and still could have stayed longer. Not to be missed. It is free, but there is a collection basket if you want to make a donation.

While visiting Chandler-​area friends, we explored this wonderful museum and I was surprised at how expansive and interesting it is. We were thinking it might take us only a few minutes to see everything but were we wrong — the place just goes on and on, and we had to keep going! The paintings, sculptures, basket collection and correspondence betw the owner and artists — all are intriguing. I will probably return there on my next trip because we just couldn’t see it all in one visit. Highly recommend it. The location is unassuming and looks a little bit ware-​housy from the outside; what a lovely gift to the community from the Basha family.

It is an amazing collection of Western paintings, bronze sculptures, Indian baskets and kachinas. Free to the public. Very few know about this, check it out.

My sister and I took the KIDS here on our museum day. As we walked in, my nephew looked at the reception desk and travelled his head around the lounge and asked «what is this place?»
«It’s an art gallery.» I answered.
«This is boring.» He quipped. I told him that he didn’t have a choice. All I was thinking was good thing this was free admission!
Boy, was he wrong! My little cutie pie motioned to his little cousin to look at all the cool bronze sculptures. What little boy could not get excited over «Cowboys and Indians»? We told them that sculptures usually tell a story. They had fun making up all sorts of hilarious ones! My nieces loved the depth of pastel portraits by Harley Brown. Even my sister, the artist, was in awe.
The little boys are just learning their color wheel. The game was to look at a painting and call out what colors they see. It teaches kinesthetic boys how to look at things visually. They were surprised at how many different color a white cloud in a painting has! I could not forget to mention the gun collection. They both pressed their noses on the glass case (sorry about that) while each one picked their favorite.
Expect to be amazed with such intricacy of Hopi Kachina sculptures by Cecil Calnimptewa’s. Oil paintings by reknowned Tucson artist, Howard Terpning, come alive with such vivid colors and light. I could go on and on…
«This is cool», my little nephew said at the end of our visit. Even a 5 year old can appreciate great works of Southwestern art!

Cool little gallery with lots of Southwest art. Admission is free, and although I’m usually not a big fan of Southwestern style art, I enjoyed looking at the various paintings, sculptures, and pottery. They also have an interesting selection of guns from the Old West.

The Zelma Basha Salmera Art Gallery is a small but growing exhibit showcasing Contemporary Western and Native American Art. Dedicated to Grocery store magnate Eddie Bashas beloved Aunt Zelma, the gallery holds over 600 oil paintings, watercolors, acrylics, pastel and charcoal drawings, pen & inks, bronze, wood and natural stone sculptures, wood-​turned bowls, basketry, pottery, kachinas and jewelry. The Basha Art Gallery is open M-​F until 4 pm and admission is free.