The Great Plains Art Museum is the museum most Lincoln visitors walk right past — and the one locals wish they wouldn’t. Founded on the Christlieb Collection, donated in 1980 by Bellevue collectors Dr. John and Elizabeth Christlieb, it holds genuine Western masters: Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, plus bronze sculpture, historic photography, and a growing collection of Indigenous art and contemporary Plains voices. Six to eight exhibitions a year rotate through, including Contemporary Indigeneity, a juried show of Native artists from across the region.
It’s an extension of UNL’s Center for Great Plains Studies, so the curatorial bar is high — knowledgeable docents, thoughtful labels, none of the dead-air feeling of a small regional gallery. And it’s always free.
Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 to 5; closed major holidays and home football Saturdays. Park at the Que Place garage at 11th and Q. Pair it with Sheldon a few blocks north for Lincoln’s best free-art afternoon.