Southwest Museum Braun Research Library

About Us

The Southwest Museum holds one of the nation's most important museum, library, and archive collections related to the American Indian. In addition it has extensive holdings of Prehispanic, Spanish Colonial, Latino, and Western American art and artifacts. For eighty years it has supported research, publications, exhibitions, and other educational activities to advance the public's understanding and appreciation of the Americas, with particular emphasis on the Western United States and Mesoamerica.
The collections of the Southwest Museum represent Native American cultures from Alaska to South America. The museum contains some of the finest examples of Indian art and artifacts in the United States. Beyond this primary emphasis, the Southwest Museum holds important collections of Mesoamerican and South American pre-Columbian pottery and textiles, and Hispanic folk and decorative arts.