The Kirkland at the Denver Art Museum

The Vance Kirkland Museum sits behind a gold-and-black geometric facade designed by Jim Olson to resemble a decorative box. Vance Kirkland himself spent decades painting in a small studio nearby, creating surrealist works with his own invented techniques, like applying oil paint with rods and dowels. After his death, the museum was built to house his massive collection of twentieth-century design and his own canvases. It holds the largest collection of international decorative arts in the country, all packed into that single building.