This nationally-recognized museum has a permanent collection of more than 3,300 works of fine and decorative art from the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Glasgow, Wiener Werkstatte, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Art Deco, Modern and Pop Art schools. It also features 700 works of Colorado art by more than 170 artists.

Founded by its current director, Hugh Grant, the museum opened in 1996 with the mission of documenting, collecting, preserving and exhibiting decorative arts by Colorado artists. Its modernist, decorative art collection includes objects dating from 1875 to 1980, and has approximately 600 items on view. Additionally, its international, modernist collection dates from 1880 to 1980, and has more than 3,300 items on display.

Along with those wide-reaching collections, the institution acquired the estate collection of Colorado painter Vance Kirkland. Other works by Colorado artists in the collection include paintings by Charles Bunnell, furniture by Frank Gilpin, sculpture by Edgar Britton, and ceramics by Ed Oshier.