Free History

10 places to visit for free tours and family fun on Austin Museum Day

Family looking at art at the Contemporary Austin

Austin Museum Day brings together a lot of family-friendly activities.

Photo courtesy of the Contemporary Austin

Every year, Austin’s museums and art spaces throw open their doors for a celebration of culture, history, science, and creativity. This year’s Austin Museum Day arrives on September 21, offering a full day of free programming across the city.

Thanks to the diversity in the 39 museums and historical organizations participating, there are a range of events appealing to all ages, from outdoor enthusiasts drawn to nature and science, to art lovers hanging out downtown, to history buffs curious about Central Texas’ past.

Attending Museum Day is easy, but deciding where to spend your limited time is hard. Here's a selection of 10 recommended spots to visit on Museum Day.

Flower Hill Center
10 am to 3 pm, 1316 W. 6th St.
Explore the historic Smoot House, wander the grounds, and savor light refreshments on the porch at this preserved urban homestead. The house offers an immersive glimpse into an Austin family’s 19th-century life with period-accurate interiors and furniture. It's perfect for history lovers, architecture fans, and families looking for a hands-on art activity. Flower Hill is also hosting an all-ages collage workshop led by Carlie Arts.

Texas Science & Natural History Museum
1-5 pm, 2400 Trinity St.
Step into Texas’ deep past and present by walking beneath the 33-foot–wingspan of a dinosaur and touching a real meteorite. Visitors on Museum Day will be among the first to experience the newly reopened Paleontology Gallery and the hands-on Discovery Center, designed for families and upper-elementary school students. Plus, dive into astronomy with an exhibit featuring a scale model of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the largest optical telescope in North America.

LBJ Library
9 am to 4 pm, 2313 Red River St.
Museum Day coincides with a tradition first nationally recognized in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson: Hispanic Heritage Month. The LBJ Library’s celebration blends the two occasions with free admission, live music by Austin-based Sofrito y Su Melao, and hands-on crafts for all ages. There will be stations to craft flower crowns, instruments, bracelets, and piñata art. Visitors will find English and Spanish storytimes, lotería for kids and adults, and complimentary conchas.

Elisabet Ney Museum at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden
Noon to 5 pm, 605 Azie Morton Rd.
At the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, attendees can get hands-on with sculpture through plaster casting, soap carving, and clay portraiture. It's all part of the Ney’s new Breaking the Mold: Mobile Hands-On Art Crates program. Local artist Dana Younger will also be onsite, demonstrating his portrait sculpting work. Museum Day is also your last chance to experience the Ney’s Super Modeling exhibition before it closes to make room for a new contemporary show.

Visual Arts Center
Noon to 5 pm, 2301 San Jacinto Blvd.
Try your hand at letterpress typesetting with UT Art lecturer and design lab technician Henry Smith, using the Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection. Smith, caretaker of the 19th‑century wood type archive since 2019, brings design history to life for participants. Afterward, enjoy a sneak peek of Hundred Points: Contemporary Graphic Design from Austin, São Paulo, Cairo, and Helsinki, spotlighting how geography, history, and community shape the work of 16 international design studios.

Mexic-Arte Museum
1-4 pm, 419 Congress Ave.
The Mexic-Arte Museum is hosting two hands-on activities tied to Día de los Muertos. Visitors can create papel picado for the community exhibition En lo más negro del verano/In the Darkest Domain of Summer, guided by a participating artist. Then, they can join Texas artist Gabo Martini in crafting seed clay pieces using cempaxóchitl (Mexican marigold) seeds, making simple seed balls or sculpting small figures. The Mexic-Arte serves as an anchor for the newly state-recognized 5th Street Mexican American Heritage Corridor & Cultural District, so visitors may want to extend their visit to get to know the area.

Bullock Museum
10 am to 5 pm, 1800 Congress Ave.
Hear Native American-style flutes played by the Lone Star Flute Circle from 10 am to 2 pm, see artifacts from the Gault Archaeological Site, try cowboy life demos with the Williamson Museum, and explore hands-on math fun with MathHappens. Visitors can also visit museum exhibition Becoming Texas, an immersive first-floor gallery tracing 16,000 years of Texas history through the latest research up to Mexican Independence in 1821.

Neill-Cochran House Museum
11 am to 4 pm, 2310 San Gabriel St.
Visit one of Austin’s oldest residences, with living historians, self-guided audio tours, and scavenger hunts. Open for all ages, the Neill-Cochran House is displaying watercolor paintings by Elizabeth Payne in the Colorscapes exhibit, leading a painting workshop inspired by them, and offering homemade ice cream. Attendees can also meet Victorian ladies and Buffalo Soldiers, shop from local vendors, and catch live music from the Two Goat String Band on these historic grounds.

Williamson County Museum
1-4 pm, 716 S. Austin Ave., Georgetown
This Georgetown museum has organized a family-friendly day exploring the bats, butterflies, and birds of Williamson County through hands-on crafts, interactive exhibits, and nature-inspired take-home art. In addition to the activities, current exhibits like Voices from Home about the Vietnam War and a gallery on the county’s founding are also on display.

Pioneer Farms
10 am to 2 pm, 10621 Pioneer Farms Dr.
Pioneer Farms is Central Texas’ premier living history park, showcasing restored homesteads spanning the mid-to-late 1800s. Stroll through a 149-year-old church where Elvis Presley once lifted his voice in song, and glide across the floor of a classic Texas dance hall that hosted the legendary Bob Wills. Along the way, watch blacksmiths hammer hot iron, enjoy live music, and immerse yourself in living-history reenactments. Visitors can also view a new exhibit on 19th-century Texas women, meet longhorns and farm animals, and wander historic cabins relocated from across Texas.

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State of the Arts

7 art exhibitions to catch in Austin this December

Collage in Licensed to Thrill at West Chelsea Contemporary

Photo courtesy of West Chelsea Contemporary

Collage, vintage advertisements, and clever wordplay are blended in Licensed to Thrill at West Chelsea Contemporary

December brings a convergence of artistic visions to Austin's galleries and museums. This month features everything from the dramatic realism of Spanish Baroque oil painting to contemporary works in handmade paper, found objects, and layered textiles.

The shows span intimate portraits paired with women's own voices, satirical reinterpretations of advertising's glossy promises, and works that honor Indigenous plant wisdom through digital innovation. This month’s exhibitions invite viewers to appreciate not just what's shown, but how it's made and what those processes reveal about power, memory, and connection.

West Chelsea Contemporary

Group Exhibition: Licensed to Thrill — Now through December 21
Charlotte Rose and the Connor Brothers return to Austin with Licensed to Thrill, a sleek examination of desire and the carefully crafted performances that surround it. Rose tears down advertising's glossy veneer by reimagining commercial fantasies to reveal darker truths about mortality and longing. The Connor Brothers transform vintage nostalgia into cutting satire, their pulp fiction-inspired pieces merging fact and fantasy with clever word play.

Davis Gallery

Group Exhibition: Cornucopia: Annual Holiday Show — Now through January 3
This diverse holiday exhibition brings together more than 30 artists working across painting, collage, and mixed media, offering viewers a spectrum from whimsy to profound introspection. The show features vibrant Western cowboy figures by B Shawn Cox alongside Danny Cabading's haunting self-portraits; plus, Lauren Jaben contributes delicate collage work, and other artists create complex three-dimensional pieces assembled from found objects.

Austin Public Library

Robin Kang: The Light That Grows Here — Now through January 4
The Light That Grows Here weaves native Texas plants, ancestral textile practices, and digital technology into works that honor the healing power of nature. Informed by her studies with master weavers worldwide and her initiations into Amazonian shamanic practices, Kang transforms the act of weaving into ritual, inviting viewers to contemplate how craft can reconnect us with ecological wisdom and the unseen intelligence of the plant world.

Wally Workman Gallery

Priscilla Robinson: Between — December 6 through January 4
Robinson works at the intersection of handmade paper and fused glass, drawing inspiration from her dual studios in Austin and Taos. This exhibition focuses on the ambiguous "between spaces" — where opposites meet and transition — and their relationship to the natural world. The artist combines handmade paper, glass, metal, and polycarbonate into fragments that interconnect to form cohesive artwork. Robinson's layered constructions feel substantial and dense, evoking the texture of flower petals or sculpted clay. Her pieces pulse with movement, suggesting flowing rivers or autumn leaves caught in the wind.

Women & Their Work

Barbara Felix: The Glorious Way She Moves — Now through January 15
Felix has created a multi-sensory celebration of women across generations, cultures, and lived experiences, rooted in her Black and Latina heritage and inspired by her mother's enduring friendships. Felix paints movement-based portraits of women she knows, meets, or admires — each one a tribute to the joy that women embody as acts of resistance. Each piece is paired with audio recordings of the women themselves, sharing stories of struggle, empowerment, and hope.

Photo courtesy of West Chelsea Contemporary

Collage, vintage advertisements, and clever wordplay are blended in Licensed to Thrill at West Chelsea Contemporary

Blanton Museum

Group Exhibition: Spirit & Splendor: El Greco, Velázquez, and the Hispanic Baroque — Now through February 1
Featuring almost 60 paintings, Spirit & Splendor charts the evolution of Spanish art over 150 years. The exhibition pulls from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library's collection, presenting masterpieces by El Greco and Diego Velázquez alongside José de Páez and Melchor Pérez Holguín, painters who brought the Baroque vision to Spain's American territories. The show offers a rare chance to see works from one of the world's most important collections of Hispanic art, showcasing the emotional intensity that made Spanish Baroque painting legendary.

Art for the People Gallery

Group Exhibition: The Edge of Everything — Now through February 21
The Edge of Everything gathers 17 artists inspired by the quiet observations of everyday life. The exhibition captures the subtle textures of our surroundings through diverse perspectives and mediums. Among the featured artists are Alessandra Posada, who brings over two decades of experience in ink, watercolor, and sculptural objects. Luke Smith's oil paintings celebrate nature and adventure, and Paul Moncus explores the human condition through portraiture.

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