Artpace, a local foundation with national influence, anchors the art community with impressive exhibits, active public outreach and an international artist-in-residence program. Each artist's residency is launched with a potluck dinner, which coincides with the exhibit opening and is meant to introduce the resident to the community. Brown-bag lunches with discussions about current exhibits, lectures, seminars, film screenings and community events provide a context for the residents' work and encourage the public to become involved with the contemporary art community. The beautifully renovated 1920s-era building that the foundation calls home was once an automobile dealership. It is only one block from the River Walk in the downtown cultural district, near the Central Library.

Housed in what was once the Lone Star Brewery, this museum boasts fairly comprehensive collections of both ancient and Asian art. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art displays what is probably one of the most impressive collections of pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial, and Latin American modern and folk art in the United States. On Sundays, the museum sponsors educational workshops for children, in which they can create their own pieces of art to display at home. The museum also plays host to touring exhibits such as one featuring Egyptian artifacts on loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

This Spanish-Mediterranean mansion, located in the heart of well-to-do Alamo Heights, houses impressive artworks from 19th and 20th Century America and Europe, in addition to one of the largest theater arts collections in the United States. Its grounds are as lovely as its collections, boasting fountains, streams, goldfish ponds and Japanese-style gardens. Recent touring exhibitions include works by Georgia O'Keefe, a collection of pop art and American Pictorial Photography. The auditorium and portions of the McNay Art Museum are available for private functions.